Earlier today Microsoft unveiled it's Mojave Experiment web site as part of its multimillionaire marketing campaign a user focus group experiment for Windows Vista.
The site which is powered by nothing less than Flash and Flash Video, present the users with a grid of videos floating on a 3D space matrix playing videos from the recordings letting people browse thru the different customer histories.
After experiencing the web site for a few minutes, I wondered why Microsoft didn't choose Silverlight for providing such rich media support to its web site?
The kind of experience the sites provides could have even possible using the RTM version of Silverlight 1.0 with a level of effort toping under a week, as Kurt from Identity Mine backed me up as a response to my twitter.
To save Vista, Microsoft chooses Adobe Flash Player!
This is what the title of Ted Patrick's latest post reads like, and this is what Microsoft folks should avoid when been just weeks before their Rich Web Client Platform will hit mainstream with an event like the Summer Olympic and NBC's support for content.
Eating your own dog food shows not only respect and support for the teams working on such technologies, but also for the myriad of companies investing in such food.
As the release of Silverlight 2 nears its date, I will expect to see Microsoft's creativity to be shown in putting their own technology in use at key properties in the web.
Silverlight 1.0 has been in the official market for almost a year and still the number of such experiments are quite low.
Only time will tell what the future will bring but I expect nothing less than amazing... hopefully Microsoft will be part of making the "transition to rich" part of their mission and perform accordingly.
In mean time let's keep praising Flash for what it is: an ubiquitous platform.
Vista's Second Chance
Microsoft's latest campaign has got traction around the web because of its nature of accepting the charges that for more than 15 months have been made of its latest client operative system and its customer challenge for giving Vista a second chance.
Even though this experiment is not part of such campaign, as Vista Blog clarifies in a post following the web site unveiling - thanks Kurt for the update - its association is something that is sure.
The experiment started in San Francisco about a month ago where 22 hidden cameras recorded a focus group study about Microsoft's latest OS "Mojave", which later will shown to be Windows Vista SP1 itself... that's where the wow effect got born.
To learn more about the campaign experiment here is a follow to a news analysis from eWeek's Microsoft Watch where the new campaign and the Mojave Experiment are placed under the magnifying glass.
Gilbert...thanks for the shoutout. Just a quick note: the mojave experiment site wasn't part of the big advertising campaign. Chris Flores over on the Windows Vista Team Blog specifically called that out in the last paragraph of his recent post: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/07/29/windows-mojave-video-posts.aspx
ReplyDeletelet's try that url again: http://tinyurl.com/vistamojave
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link back Kurt... will update accordingly :)
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