Mike Hendrickson

Last May, Tim O'Reilly posted a piece on whether or not Adobe was worried about the new threat to their dominance in the RIA space by the introduction of Silverlight from Microsoft. In a nutshell, the answer was no. From a book sales perspective, that was true and remains true today. But there is more to that answer than what appears at face-value from data on book sales.

Silverlight 2 is the product that Microsoft is backing in the RIA race. That in itself is worth, at least, some restless nights. Silverlight has not become a publishing event. At the present time, there are 10 Silverlight books published yet only one is on the current release and is truly a 2 book because it offers free, or paid, updates all the way through to a FCS launch.

But it does appear as though Silverlight is gaining some ground on Adobe. At least on Search volume. The image below shows the Google Trends for these technologies

silverlight [blue] adobe flash [red] adobe flex [orange] adobe air [green]

        A.    Adobe AIR Puts Companies on Desktops

        B.     Adobe Introduces Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex 3 Software

        C.    Nokia to bring Microsoft Silverlight to mobiles

        D.     Microsoft reveals new content partners, DRM for Silverlight

        E.    Microsoft to highlight Silverlight, 'Oslo' at show

        F.     Onstream Media Debuts Microsoft Silverlight Webcasting Service

So the long and short of this is that Silverlight is likely not causing Adobe to lose sleep at night, but rather giving them one of those a rough, restless nights ... knowing that soon Microsoft will launch a credible product aimed squarely at them.

Thanks to all of you who made Ignite Boston 4 a great evening. If you were not able to attend, or if you want to refresh what you heard, you can find the videos to each talk below. Enjoy and we hope to see you in January.

Sponsored by:     

The fourth Ignite Boston is this Thursday, September 11, from 6 to 10pm at The Hooley House in the Faneuil Hall area of Boston. Don't miss out on hearing a special keynote by Tim O'Reilly. There is no cover charge or any sort of fee. The event is free as in 'Free Beer'. In fact, Microsoft is sponsoring the night and there will be a free beer for those of you who check in when you get there.

From 6-6:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. After the mingling and social stuff, on to the special keynotes -- one by Tim O'Reilly and another by Dan Chak. Then, onto the lightening talks.

In addition to the two keynotes, here are the talks we have on tap for the evening. They are in no particular order yet.

• Mansour Raad - Disaster Routing Application in 24hours
  Deconstructing the 24 hours to build a re-routing application for the Minneapolis I35 bridge collapse.
  


• Jon Radoff - Megatrends in Video Gaming
  A presentation on the who, what and where of current videogame market trends.
  


• Wayne Kurtzman- i can haz analytix?
  Prove success. The 4 things you must know to ACCURATELY measure user behavior, trends, and what to do about them.
  


• David Berube - How To Turn Inevitable Startup Failure Into A Chance For Success
  Most startups fail, and not for technological reasons. Most startups are based on ideas that are, economically speaking, stupid.
  


• Brian Peltonen- Grey Thumb: Artificial life discussion group in Boston
  An overview of research in simulating living systems and evolutionary processes.
  


• Benjamin Hil- Revealing Errors
  Errors can reveal hidden aspects of our technology and, in the process, teach us how this technology affects our lives.
  


• Cameron Freer- vdash - a formal math commons
  The world is ripe for a wiki of computer-checked mathematics that anyone can edit. Learn how you can participate!
  


• Joseph Flaherty- Personal Fabrication: 2013
  How custom manufacturing technology, the Maker movement and other emerging trends will put the "custom" back in customer


• Ben Grossman- Aggregation Conversation
  Aggregation has been a 'make or break' factor for products, services and brands-hear how it applies to Social Media now.


• Rahul Dave- Scaling Astronomy
  Current surveys gather ~50GB/night. In 5 years, 50TB/night. Will we drown, frown or win? Web2, Science, and large data..
  


• Jonathan Zdziarski- iPhone Passcode: Gone in 60 Seconds
  Author Jonathan Zdziarski will demonstrate how easy it is to crack the passcode on an iPhone 3G by breaking a demo unit.
  


• John Burkhardt- What is Live Mesh?
  This talk will describe Windows Live Mesh and how it uses AtomPub and FeedSync as an extensible platform.

We hope to see you at the Hooley House this Thursday evening.

The fourth Ignite Boston will be on Thursday, September 11, from 6 to 10pm at the Hooley House, one block from Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA. THIS IS A LARGER VENUE. So the acoustics will be better than our last event and there will be room to sit, stand and mingle.

From 6-6:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. After the mingling and social stuff, we'll have a couple of special keynote presentations to kick off our Ignite talks. Then, onto guest speakers who'll catch you up on the cool, new, innovative stuff going on in technology today. Don’t blink or you’ll miss their lightning-fast, five-minute presentations. During intermissions, get a cold beer and chat with speakers, sponsors, and O’Reilly’s own editors. Join us Thursday, September 11th, for a fun, energetic evening of talking, learning, collaborating and drinking!

RSVP If you plan to attend, email IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com for the chance to win $300 worth of O'Reilly books of your choosing. You must be present to win. There will likely be other items like tee-shirts and other promo items for those who alert us ahead that they plan to attend. Presentation Guidelines

Ignite is a user-generated event. If you’re interested in speaking, then submit a proposal for consideration.

Presentations must:

* Be no longer than 5 minutes

* Be on an innovative topic (no sales pitches, please!)

* Be viewable on a PC [a MacBook Pro with Powerpoint and Keynote, and PDF] with standard AV equipment

* Did we mention, no Sales Pitches.

For anyone that's never been to Ignite, you may find it useful to see a talk or two. Here's a link to examples from the Boston Ignite 3 talks.

The third Ignite Boston will be next week - Thursday, May 29, from 6 to 10pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. There is no cover charge or any sort of fee. The event is free as in 'Free Beer'. In fact, Microsoft is sponsoring the night and there will be a free beer for those of you who check in when you get there.

RSVP If you plan to attend, email IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com for the chance to win $300 worth of O'Reilly books of your choosing. You must be present to win. There will likely be other items like tee-shirts and other promo items for those who alert us ahead that they plan to attend.

From 6-6:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. After the mingling and social stuff, we'll have a couple of special keynotes by Jonathan Zdziarski and John Viega to kick off our Ignite talks. Then, onto the lightening talks.

In addition to the two keynotes, here are the talks we have on tap for the evening. They are in no particular order yet.

We hope to see you at Tommy Doyles next Thursday evening.

The third Ignite Boston will be on Thursday, May 29, from 6 to 10pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. This time, we're using two floors at Tommy Doyle's, so the acoustics will be better than our first event there. From 6-6:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. After the mingling and social stuff, we'll have a couple of special keynote presentations by Jonathan Zdziarski of iPhone notoriety and John Viega of Security notoriety to kick off our Ignite talks. Then, onto guest speakers who'll catch you up on the cool, new, innovative stuff going on in technology today. Don’t blink or you’ll miss their lightning-fast, five-minute presentations. During intermissions, get a cold beer and chat with speakers, sponsors, and O’Reilly’s own editors. Join us Thursday, May 29, for a fun, energetic evening of talking, learning, collaborating and drinking!

RSVP If you plan to attend, email IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com for the chance to win $300 worth of O'Reilly books of your choosing. You must be present to win. There will likely be other items like tee-shirts and other promo items for those who alert us ahead that they plan to attend.

Presentation Guidelines

Ignite is a user-generated event. If you’re interested in speaking, then submit a proposal for consideration.

Presentations must:

• Be no longer than 5 minutes
• Be on an innovative topic (no sales pitches, please!)
• Be viewable on a PC [a MacBook Pro with Powerpoint and Keynote, and PDF] with standard AV equipment
• Did we mention, no Sales Pitches.

We hope to see you there.