Silverlight 3 - Where is Silverlight Mobile?
Update 2/18/2010: Silverlight Mobile is coming in beta form during the MIX 2010 conference in March 2010. This will include a Silverlight SDK for the new Windows Phone 7 platform. Look for Silverlight mobile to be announced for Symbian, BlackBerry and Droid in the near future as well.
This article was written March 2009...what is funny is how I was right that Silverlight mobile would be around the Visual Studio 2010 CTP/RTM. Go me :)
During MIX 2009, Microsoft announced many new features that will be coming as part of the Silverlight 3 framework. One feature that was suprisingly missing was Silverlight support for mobile devices. Not only was this surprising, but it was really disappointing as I was really sure that this feature would be released as part of Silverlight 3.
Why the surprise?
Did you know that mobile support for Silverlight was announced a while ago? Do you know when? End of 2008? Beginning of 2008? Try the beginning of 2007! Silverlight support for mobile devices was shown publicly during the MIX 2007 conference when Silverlight Alpha 1.1 was announced. Over two years ago we had a demo of Silverlight on a mobile device, yet we still don't have a public beta or release of the product (Note: There are private demos of this out there).
"Microsoft probably just shifted strategies and you are making a big deal about something two years ago, right?"
Actually NO. At MIX 2008, Amit Chopra (the program manager for Silverlight mobile) during his Mobile Devices and Microsoft Silverlight presentation showed off Silvelight on the mobile. So one year later Microsoft reported progress on the Silverlight mobile platform. Furthermore, they stated that they would also be releasing Silverlight 1.0 for Mobile shortly after the conference for Windows Mobile 6.x. (Check out the video linked above for the false promises).
Some real basic demos of Silverlight mobile at MIX 2008 (Yeah, it was shown that dark.)
Well, has there been any more announced from Microsoft relating to Silverlight mobile? Believe it or not, again at the PDC 2008 conference (October 2008), Amit Chopra during his talk Silverlight 2 for Mobile showed Silverlight 2 running on a mobile emulator and mobile device. Furthermore, we were also told that Silverlight Mobile would NOT be like Flash Lite. You would get about 99% of the SDK on the web and mobile in one shot (Note: Things like video brushes would not be supported on SL mobile). Sounded really promising, right?
Silverlight 2 Mobile Environment. Silverlight 2 debugging on a Mobile emulator. Too bad it never was made came public.
Fast forward to MIX 2009. Surprisingly we were showed nothing about Silverlight 2 or 3 on a mobile device. There was some chatter on Twitter with someone who talked to Amit Chopra and he stated that Silverlight mobile is about a year away! That was apparently true since there is nothing in the Silverlight 3 SDK related to mobile devices.
It is not like Microsoft couldn't accomplish Silverlight on a mobile in two years. Look what has happened to the evolution of Silverlight in two years. From March 2007 to March 2009, we have gone from Silverlight 1.1 Alpha -> Silverlight 2 Beta 1 -> Silverlight 2 Beta 2 -> Silverlight 2 RC -> Silverlight 2 RTW -> Silverlight 3 Beta 1. Two years is an eternity for an immature platform like Silverlight.
"The fact that Silverlight for mobile has been announced two years ago and we don't have a public beta is surprising. But what is more surprising is that Silverlight mobile is over a year away!"
What happened?
It's obvious that Microsoft has hit some snags with Silverlight mobile. I don't know the exact details but it looks like performance had a big part of it. Furthermore, Silverlight did not support the features that next generation mobile devices currently support. For example, the iPhone has 3D transitions, multi-touch support, clearer text. Silverlight obviously needed to catch up in order to be competitive when it was released. Microsoft decided to add the features into the core framework first and then leverage them in the Silverlight mobile framework. A lot of people on forums are asking why Silverlight went with some features like 3D support, multi-touch, clear fonts, etc., instead of printing. As you can see, these features make a little more sense now.
The second part of the story is that Silverlight mobile needs to fit into Microsoft's higher mobile strategy. Microsoft has announced in pieces its Windows Mobile 7 strategy. I think it is essentially going to be a Microsoft version of the iPhone with a major twist: the Silverlight App Store and Silverlight will be powering a lot of the extensions. More on that in another post.
Has Microsoft given up on Silverlight mobile?
Obviousy, the answer to that is no. Microsoft wants to get Silverlight for mobile devices right. I think it will power the Windows Mobile 7 strategy and it needs to be "as good" as Apple's iPhone/iPod. Microsoft can't afford another Zune vs. iPod debacle. If Silverlight is done right, it could be really powerful and blow Apple's framework away. I will take .NET over Apple's Objective-C any day. Furthermore, Silverlight allows you to target mobile, web and the desktop all at the same time. The iPhone framework (as of now) only supports the mobile platform. As you can see, Silverlight mobile is key to the strategy at Microsoft.
When will we see Silverlight 3 mobile?
The best estimate we heard was a tweet from MIX (I heard from someone who talked to Amit Chopra) that Silverlight mobile is about a year away. This makes Silverlight mobile being released in line with the Windows 7 mobile platform. I am hoping we see a beta/CTP around the Visual Studio 2010 release.