Can’t really say that I had a huge surprise with Downey leaving Adobe to join Microsoft, however like all the rest of us I can say it messes up a little with everyone.

The reason for this post is first to congratulate Mike for the hard decision I believe he had, and to try to understand what were the motivations or des(motivations) with is well know career at Macromedia / Adobe to take a decision like this.

Was Silverlight or Microsoft that motivated him or could it be Adobe not giving anymore the motivation he needed.

Could it be possible in the near future some more guys like Lynch or Chambers follow his steps? Unfortunately or not it’s not the first case in this last year. Can this changes became normal?

Microsoft Corp. said that the next version of its Silverlight media player, due early next year, will be able to play live high-definition video encoded for rival Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash player.

Full Article

Can´t say it’s a surprise Flash position in the graph but I would expect a better performance by Flex. Taking close attention to the graph I notice some downgrade by Flex and it seems that Silverlight is trying to win some positions. Let’s see what time reserves for all of these products.

Click on the image below to get a better view of the graph and read all the comments around these results.

Nokia announced today that it will be installing Silverlight on S60, S40 and Nokia internet tablets.

Sunny Talks Tech

And another of the many innovations I have (and have yet to) stumble across is the new declarative (more on that later) language from Microsoft. This is what appears to be a direct aim at combating Adobe’s hopes with AIR, and Flex both in one. The similarities become even more obvious when you see more in depth details on the way the script is coded.

Microsoft D – Another stab at Adobe?

I would like to invite you to read this nice article by Scott Klarr where he explains the differences and what these four products stand for.

The text his clear and simple, all the article his written with few or any technical details, so it will be simple for you to choose one of these products next time you built an application.

Microsoft has just made available the next Flash killer. At least i suppose that’s what they think Silverlight will do. In a continuous battle for delivering RIA Microsoft keep’s trying to bring Flash down. As for me and at the near future that is just impossible. Anyway lets keep attention on this Silverlight release. One think is for sure, they have a nice logo…

If everyone remembers back when flash and active-x components of a webpage started automatically, thats when microsoft was apparently ignoring a patent from someone else. They changed it so you have to click on it, and now they are trying to change it back. Techno law has come home.

read more | digg story

“Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash has never had serious competition, which allowed it to become the dominant technology for Web multimedia, even though its complexity causes some headaches for developers. Yet Microsoft’s Silverlight stands to give Flash a run for its market share.Now available in beta, Silverlight is slated for a 1.0 release this summer and is already drawing strong interest from developers.

Attendees at Microsoft’s TechEd 2007 conference in Orlando, Fla., crowded into a packed Silverlight overview session Monday evening, led by Developer Division General Manager Scott Guthrie. A recap of slides and demos first shown at Microsoft’s Mix07 show last month, the Silverlight session showcased the technology that Microsoft is relying on to bring its technology platform beyond the operating system and into the Web browser.

Silverlight is a subset of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) system that powers Vista. It aims to best Flash in two ways: By offering better-looking, more advanced display and interactive functionality, and by featuring better tooling support.”

Full article

Could Adobe’s contribution to Mozilla force MS to take Internet Explorer open source? by ZDNet’s David Berlind — News.com’s Martin Lamonica has the details on “the largest code contribution yet to the open source Mozilla Foundation:” On Tuesday, Adobe is expected to announce the donation in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. The code will form the basis for a new open-source project called Tamarin, which will be governed [...]

The long awaited IE7 has been officially released. Get it now from the Microsoft website.

read more | digg story

Microsoft has acquired iView Multimedia, a UK based digital photo management company, which has an application that can compete directly Adobe products such as Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks.

Via iTWire

Developers are set to get their first chance to play with Microsoft’s new web design tool later today. The company is ready to release a Community Technology Preview of Expression Web Designer, one of three new tools designed to compete with rival Adobe’s Dreamweaver.

Via Techworld

Microsoft released IE7 Beta 2.

- Search bar
- Tab browsing
- Enhanced security and more

Give it a try! It runs much faster than previous IE!

Just great.

Maps available for Seattle (City Center) and San Francisco (City Center)

http://preview.local.live.com/

Yesterday, Microsoft announced it will bring Halo 2 to the PC. But exclusively to the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. So we all have to wait.

PC version of Halo 2 will offer the full single-player campaign and multiplayer maps of the original Xbox version.

I never played this game but I remember that when this game was released there was lots of excitement everywhere. So I’m a little curious about it.

It is available for download the Microsoft Expression Trial Version, this product has been talked a lot and has created some expectation for the Flash community.
Well it seems that now everyone can see what Expression really is.

Click here to go to the Microsoft Expression homepage if you want to know more about this product

If you already know what Expression is and want to test the Trial here is the link for the download page

Another online service from Microsoft has just been released today. With integrated feed reader and different Gadgets.

read more | digg story

Microsoft today unveiled Microsoft Expression, a suite of Web site design and graphics software that enables .Net developers to handle tasks similar to those that users of corresponding software from from Adobe Systems and Macromedia have performed for years.

Read the full article here.

Windows Vista will come in seven different versions:

- Windows Vista Starter Edition
- Windows Vista Home Basic Edition
- Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
- Windows Vista Professional Edition
- Windows Vista Small Business Edition
- Windows Vista Enterprise Edition
- Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

One for each day of the week?!

Keep on reading here.