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by rbanffy 6231 days ago
I think we are reading too much from cryptic political messages.

Unless HTML5 and canvas gain a lot of momentum, and Google is doing a lot in this direction, Microsoft will come up with a broken half-compatible and quirky implementation geared to badmouth the whole HTML5 thing as they did with the ODF "support" in Office.
3 comments
f1lt3r 6231 days ago
Agreed. Mozilla are also doing their part with FireFox, they have something called "35 Days" coming up to co-inside with the public release of 3.5, which is packed with juicy HTML5 goodness.

I think Microsoft are badly hurting from the their lack of web-focus (or at least web-productivity) over past years (around v6), but I don't think they are maimed. When you actually meet some of these guys at conferences etc: they seem to be very intelligent individuals, who have their finger on the pulse, yet remain very guarded.

Their guardedness is understandable from a corporate perspective, but it also carries personal weight when you hear a room full of people bad-mouthing IE with some of their developers standing at the back of the room. I have to say I am sympathetic to their position and believe in their ability, even though I am very much NOT an IE developer or enthusiast.

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snprbob86 6231 days ago
This is nothing like ODF support...

ODF is an incomplete standard. Spreadsheet formulas, for example, were not even mentioned when Microsoft started their spec and still aren't even final. It has been at least two years!

Microsoft created a new standard so that it could satisfy the openness demands of their customers (i.e. government organizations) while maintaining the existing level of functionality. Had they waited for the ODF standard, they'd still be waiting. I think the Office file format team did a stellar job without an ounce of malice.

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ZeroGravitas 6230 days ago
That doesn't even begin to approach reality, and sounds more like a list of talking points you've picked up from somewhere than a genuine opinion.

I'm getting really sick of Microsoft's new "we can't even begin thinking about implement anything until after it's a fully approved standard" while churning out their own proprietary, unstandardized competitors to those same standards. It's so brazen it's insulting.

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mpf62 6230 days ago
Apple is doing something is this direction. As far as I know, there is still neither Silverlight nor Flash available on iPhone. But you can implement some neat interactive applications with Canvas and JavaScript that also work on the newer IE-Browsers. So, in my opinion, the ice for Flash/Silverlight is already getting thinner.
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mpf62 6230 days ago
Sorry, I forgot to provide an example.

It sure is not a killer application, the example is only meant to show that there already are usecases where you do not need such things as Flash.

Flash: http://www.engadin.stmoritz.ch/winter/berge/corvatsch/info/p...

Canvas/Javascript: http://alpinforum.ch/m/

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