I know there are many people out there who consider Microsoft to be the "mother" of all technology, and in some cases, I would have to say that there are some pretty good products. However, when it comes to Silverlight versus Adobe Flex when competing in the RIA arena, I think MS has lost this one.

First of all, Adobe Flex executes in the Adobe Flash Player which has a 90%+ GLOBAL penetration rate. This means that over 90% of all computers in the world(and I've heard numbers closer to 99%) are running some version of the Flash Player. In order to run Silverlight, Microsoft requires (yet another) download and installation to operate. The problem with another download is that my confidence in Microsoft products has been severaly shaken over the past 5 years. I mean really, when you are having to patch your operating system each week with "priority updates" for over 2 years (yes im talking about WindowsXP and then the latest travesty Vista), WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I VOLUNTARILY INSTALL YET ANOTHER POTENTIALLY BUG-RIDDEN PRODUCT?

C'mon MS. Really.

Now, I'm not saying that Flex is without it's problems nor its flaws. But point of fact, Flex is much more mature (already pending Flex 4), where Silverlight only came out of beta during 3rd quarter last year, which means that it will be (if typical MS history is any indication) YEARS before they have anything that is even close to providing what Flex 3 (or even Flex 2) currently provides.

Until today (first time I saw the change), Microsoft's page on the "Mojave Experiment" was even DONE IN FLASH!!!!! I went to verify and now if appears they have removed the Flash version and replaced the Flash-based piclens-type wall with a javascript version for those of us unwilling to dare to install Silverlight (either on principle or fear). However, it was a Flash application as late as last week.

I still plan to utilize .Net at times for middle-tier and back-end, and my intent is not to "bash" anyone nor attempt to "recruit." Each technology has its followers and they However, I know there are developers out there that might be on the fence as to which technology is worthy of their "time-in-learning" investment regarding RIA technology. When it comes to my RIA user-experience dollar, my money is on Adobe.

Agreed. I think .Net and MS SQL are great for middle-back end. But there just isnt anything out there that compares to the Adobe framework. Ive looked at Spry (Adobe's AJAX controls) and I just think that even though javascript does have its uses... it has had its time and just never evolved enough to provide the same level of RIA as Flex/AIR. unless of course you count the "special" javascript plugin that Cooliris built (3-D query wall)

Anyway, i just think that Microsoft is way behind the curve. knife to a gun fight is a great analogy.