Over the next few days we will be exploring various advantages and disadvantages of using Silverlight as the underlying technology for our suite of cloud-enabled products. Recently, we released version 4 of RiteTrack Design Studio. Built on Microsoft’s Silverlight platform and available on the web, Design Studio allows garage enthusiasts and large organizations alike to quickly and efficiently produce cloud-ready applications. Silverlight enables RiteTrack 4 to offer an extremely rich user experience similar to a traditional desktop application, but enjoys the benefits of the web distribution model. Coupled with our state-of-the-art hosting services, Handel’s low cost platform offering is very attractive.
First things first. What is Silverlight? Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform web application framework. While, initially it primarily focused on rich media functionality like high quality video and smooth streaming, Silverlight is far from a one-trick pony. With subsequent releases enterprise level application development has moved into the spotlight. Because most of the logic runs on the client machine rather than the server, web applications written using Silverlight not only provide a world-class user experience, but they are extremely scalable.
Interestingly, a quick glance at the players in the web platform arena would reveal solutions that are primarily AJAX based (i.e. standard web applications). Very few use plug-ins like Silverlight and Flash. Why is that? Is there a flaw in using a plug-in based platform for the underlying technology? While there are some inherent disadvantages to exclusively offering Silverlight, the positives greatly outshine the negatives and Handel is poised to exploit the advantages.
Stay tuned.