Archive for October 9th, 2007
the biggest and fastest… in entertainment history
Halo 3, the latest in the Halo series, took in $300 million in global sales through its first week. Microsoft said that this makes Halo “the fastest-selling video game ever and already one of the most successful entertainment properties in history.”
According to this article, Bungie and Microsoft are parting ways… sort of.
Flash leads the way… big time
Article extracted from ComputerWorld on Flash Challenges:
The future of Flash
But behind the bold words, acknowledge Adobe executives, is real concern about the future of Flash. Though Flash is dominant on PCs — the Flash Player is installed on more than 90% of Web-connected computers, according to Adobe — it has failed to make much headway yet in the key cell phone market.
Moreover, Microsoft’s Silverlight poses a serious technical and marketing challenge to Flash.
“Is there any moment that I am not worried about Microsoft?” said John Loiacono, senior vice president for creative solutions at Adobe. “I always treat them as a formidable foe, if only because they have a huge checkbook and are a monopoly.”
Released officially in September, Silverlight trumps Flash in two key areas: video quality and the digital rights management (DRM) technology desired by advertisers and content providers.
Moreover, Microsoft is offering some of the necessary Silverlight server software cheaper than Adobe or, in the case of Expression Encoder, for free. Adobe’s equivalent, the Flash Media Server, costs over $4,000.
Rather than automatically distributing Silverlight to Windows users via Windows Updates, Microsoft has inked almost 10 deals with broadcast partners — enough, it believes, to get Silverlight onto 80% of Internet-connected PCs within a short time.
The adoption of Silverlight “has been great so far,” according to an e-mail from a Microsoft spokeswoman, with “downloads right in line with expectations to date.”
