RE: Bullet Points.

Firstly, I found the entire post to have little substance or cite realistic evidence. All you’ve done is taken the usual Adobe feed ubiquity is the only measurement for success rant and then twisted it to suite your conspiracy theory on how our CEO + Wife bought the PIC committee for a solid $100k to win Silverlight.

In which case, I’d simply respond with – Do your homework more.

RE: Numbers.
I don’t have to agree or disagree with the numbers, I only have to point you to Adobe Staffers blogs whom on one hand cite that 4500 people are a representative of the web which are then cross-referenced against “house hold” connected computer’s census data. Whom also don’t disqualify the 4500 folks sampled if they are found at work.

To which they then declare based off this sample, 90%+ ubiquity.

Ok, it’s a bit sketchy but I’m almost onboard with that math, that is until they then announce that between 8-18million people per day are installing Flash. Furthermore, 80% of these users do so via the adobe.com website?

Now 1.4billion people are online, do the math and when you’ve gotten past that kool-aid detox, come back and we can have a rationale conversation about ubiquity vs perception.

RE: Handling the Streaming.
I’ve got no knowledge as to whether or not we are hosting the streams, nothing I’ve seen internally indicates it’s all us pulling the levers.

RE: Services / Free etc.
Welcome to the world of commerce. Adobe are just as equally guilty of doing not only this but actively biding to counter-offer our wins post delivery.

The XDR Team are a prime example of this, whereby you have 12 folks in a team dedicated to working on prospective wins within Adobe’s clientele (i.e. New York Times app built in Flash etc).

Matt Voerman a consultant in Adobe, flew from Australia to the US to work on the MSNBC NFL “win” for Adobe. Like I said, holding us out to dry on the notion that we’re up to no good by this, is actually not fair.

Especially given the MSNBC Olympics success we had with Silverlight, as what folks need to also understand is that actually made profit for all parties involved. Nobody absorbed the costs.

RE: Ballmer influence.
You’re taking a random piece of evidence and tying it to your conspiracy theory. The two are separate entities from this discussion and the PIC folks based their decisions off of the success had with the Democratic National Convention. Again, something you conveniently left out in which I hope it was only done due to ignorance of the event? If that being the case, then clearly you’re not doing your homework.

I will leave no other comment as to what is going on in comments. I don’t like M$, I’ve used Adobe products all my life even when some of them were still Macromedia. Designers can be developers. Here’s a link for interest sake http://www.shinedraw.com/about (how do make these things links?)

Oh, and you want one fairly insignificant reason why I am enjoying the success of Obama (beyond the obvious gladness I have that tomorrow we will not be saying “Vice-President Sarah Palin”): the typography and design. Obama’s printed and web materials have had beautiful design – well-set typography, well-chosen colours. Obama is the Steve Jobs of politics.

1) Productivity in software development. Compare Visual Studio with Flex Builder or Flash IDE

2) Streaming servers. How many servers are needed and how easy to manage them. Compare MS products with Adobe products in this area.

3) DRM. Content providers want to ensure the delivery of their contents is rewarding and at low cost. MS and Adobe, which side is better and cheaper?

Regarding the facts in the post, I did not take Serge’s numbers. My post clearly states that Serge works for Adobe. His bias is public. I scraped the data in the inauguration site and did my own calculations.

Do you disagree with any of the numbers? If so, which ones?

Finally, are you willing to disclose whether or not Microsoft is actually handling the streaming and whether or not they built it for the inauguration committee?

Microsoft is known to offer its services and products for free, or even to pay people to use them (see Windows in third-world countries). So donations, etc., from Ballmer and co., would be nothing out of the ordinary insofar as business practices go for Microsoft. I’d be more interested in knowing if Microsoft is still building Silverlight solutions for events like this for free or paying other companies to use Silverlight like it was in the early days.

I don’t see what you find so unbelievable about the post. Can you clarify your objections with some facts?

Can you list the advantages of using Silverlight over Flash in this user case. Both are capable of displaying video so why choose one over the other?

If there are no real advantages, then surely the sensible business decision would be to use the player that is most ubiquitous?