I've been holding off commenting on the whole Silverlight vs. Flash debate, but, John Dowdell from Adobe posted about a Silverlight vs. Flash article from ZDNet. I couldn't resist commenting, so I have posted my comment here as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Originally posted as a comment at JD on EP:
I have been developing Flash applications for over 10 years and have welcomed every update MACR/ADBE has released. However, over tha last few years I really feel that MACR/ADBE has focused on the wrong things. Working for a large media company, we need better rendering performance, better video quality, some form of media security (DRM), and better developer tools and standards so when we hire on "Flash Developers" we don't have to try to find out if they are experts in AS1/AS2/AS3 or design/animation. My feeling is that AS is still a scripting language and not considered a true programming language. Sure, this is changing with AS3, but finding C# programmers and testing their skillset is easier than Flash and AS.

MSFT, is drawning a line between Designers (Expression Blend) and Programmers (Visual Studio) with both IDE's blurring the lines a little. However, Expression Blend can attract designers both traditional and motion graphics designers (potentially, even After Effects folks). The workflow makes sense and staying true to timeline based animations and drawing tools (which a designer can relate to). The ADBE Flex model typically relies on the programmer to make/wire up the tweens and animations, thus makes the developer act as a designer -- I think MSFT has it right.

MSFT, with Silverlight, basically has seen where Flash is weak and is focusing on "killing" it with these features. Now, I believe in the future we will still have Flash (it's powerful in may other ways), however, if ADBE doesn't make up for lost time, Flash may not be the only rich media player in town.

Danny