March 4th, 2008
Silverlight 2.0 Mac Tools?
MIX is this week and its in my backyard. I’m a long time Mac and Adobe user, but I work for a company that is heavily Microsoft influenced. At work, I’m using a Dell PC, but I jump on a Mac the moment I get home. I like both and can work well on both. But my question for Microsoft this week, on the eve of the Silverlight 2.0 beta release, is
“What tools are you going to make available to the Mac content creators out there?”
Sure - a Mac user can load up Blend in VMWare, Parallels or even go into Bootcamp and run it natively. But that is a poor solution. I lose my regular workflow, my fonts, and frankly, I’d rather be on my Mac at home, since that is the choice I made. I’m hoping this week at MIX, Microsoft will address this. If they provide a Mac player for SL, but no Mac tools or tools that aren’t up to par to what is available on Windows, then Microsoft is entering a losing battle against Flash, Flex, and AIR (assuming offline Silverlight is coming in the future).
Adobe knows cross platform tools. They’ve done it for years. I can work on a file on a PC at work, bring it home with me, and continue working on it. Or I can work at home learning new techniques and/or doing a test demo, I carry those files into work and use them in future project. I can share my files with anyone on any platform or share files from others on any platform. Adobe is even working on a Linux version of Flex Builder.
So, Microsoft, if you really want me and many others to embrace or even investigate Silverlight, then hopefully you are producing quality tools for the Mac users out there. If you’re not, or if you are going to produce sub-par tools for the Mac users, then don’t bother — I’ll stick to Flash and Flex and my CS3 suite.
