...and another thing!

Another fine example of what I was talking about yesterday... increased choice provides increased confusion. The first and biggest on the block will usually win (tho' not always, as Google has often shown)... and, (and this is the plea for world peace on earth and goodwill to all whatsits), why can't Adobe and Microsoft work together to produce a product that works for everyone?

On every system.

Always, combining the best bits of both Flash and Silverlight.

This article on the Wall Street Journal shows that this is very far from what is happening.

As it is, Microsoft's size and persistence means that more will adopt Silverlight, but surely this just makes it more complicated for us, the punters, the users, who now have to download (and regularly update) yet another plug-in when browsing the InterWeb?

Just imagine the utopia where all website producers knew which format they needed to produce video (and other animations) in... all users were able to view all content on every website... and the big companies could stop wasting grillions of pounds, dollars and euros investing in R&D to re-invent the wheel. If the wheel exists, maybe suggest putting a nice pneumatic tyre on it, or paint it pink, but don't think that we need a new type of wheel that won't work with any of our existing carts, roads or tyres!