2 REASONS SILVERLIGHT WILL DIE...
#1: Apple will most likely release new versions of Safari that are better, even for POWERPC Macs.
#2: Adobe will most likely release new versions of Flashplayer that are at least comparable for POWERPC Macs.
Oh, I forgot to mention the most important thing, SILVERLIGHT 3 is NOT PowerPC compatible, so that's like 20-30% of the Mac market down the drain from the start!
If you have a mix of different Macs like I do, some PowerPC, some Intel, why would you bother with this?
Way to go Microsuck. HAha!
I find your post HILARIOUS for the simple reason you might as well be talking about Apple in your post as Microsoft. I mean face it, Apple did the SAME THING by abandoning PowerPC in Snow Leopard and all the former PPC fanatics turned Intel fanatics LOVE IT that Apple is "finally" abandoning that "ball and chain" that is PPC. And here you are, calling Microsoft a name like "Microsuck". Are you going to call Apple something like "Applesuck" or maybe "Appholes" or something? It's the SAME THING, after all. I just find it LUDICROUS that Apple fans think EVERYTHING Microsoft does is evil, yet they are 100% blind to the same crap from Apple themselves.
How is Apple any better when they abandon (as you say 20-30%; I've seen figures that indicate as much as 50%) of their hardware base. Microsoft at least maintains support for older hardware in their operating system and tries to support most hardware vendors (whereas Apple seems more like they're FIGHTING 3rd party vendors because they're competing against them and thus have a conflict of interest).
This idea that some new open standard in Safari is somehow going to make a difference is ludicrous. ALMOST NO ONE USES SAFARI other than Mac users except on the iPhone. Most Windows users use Internet Explorer or Firefox. Apple won't even release Safari for Linux. In fact, they won't release ANYTHING for Linux, not even iTunes, which would increase their sales at the iTunes Store.
Sites like Netflix use Silverlight, not Safari. Netflix is incredibly popular and iTunes offers NOTHING TO COMPETE with subscription based rentals so any Apple tech that still does work on my PowerMac is made useless by Apple not supporting subscription or even rental based programming options. I like being able to rent HD movies on my AppleTV, but I'd prefer a subscription plan and Apple refuses to go in that direction. When you consider they only SELL TV shows and mostly only rent movies (and ONLY to AppleTV except for around 2 dozen total selection that you can buy or rent on all machines), it's not hard to see why Apple is losing the long-term game when it comes to movies and TV shows. People want to rent or subscribe to TV shows, not have to buy (at high prices compared to DVD or BD) and store HUGE amounts of space for something they will probably only watch once. I've suggested this to Apple before and they just say, that's nice and do nothing. Why even sell HD movies if you cannot get permission to sell more than 2 dozen (mostly crap) selections and why not rent TV shows for a lower price? I would have rented the entire last season of Smallville in HD from iTunes (local station is not HD for some reason that shows it), but I do not want to BUY it so the heck on Apple. So what good is any Apple technology if they will not offer the consumer what the CONSUMER WANTS TO BUY as opposed to what Apple wants to sell? Netflix IS offering those options, but (you guessed it), you NEED Silverlight to use it.
Yes, it sucks that Silverlight 2.0 and 3.0 is not offered for PPC, but that is simply because Apple themselves have abandoned PPC and the next operating system release will ALSO abandon PPC. Apple has killed PPC, abandoned over 1/3 of its entire user base (because they want to try and force them to upgrade since they make no money off past sales and apparently don't think that ticking off their past users matters since they believe NO ONE will EVER go back to Windows and there are no 3rd party Mac clones (unless you count Psystar) to avoid paying Apple whatever it wants for OS X hardware (it has a virtual monopoly on OS X hardware). Basically, Apple's entire mentality is screw the customer; they'll keep coming back anyway. Yes, Microsoft sucks, but so does Apple. Most companies suck because they put profit before people. Come to think of it, that's why society in general is going down the toilet and businesses are failing left and right. They care more about trying to line their pockets than serve their customers. Greed will destroy everything in the end. It always does.
One GOOD thing about Silverlight, though is that it supports hardware (GPU) acceleration. Apple's own operating system DOES NOT support GPU acceleration for most the GPUs out there! It's pretty darn pathetic, IMO when a Microsoft product better supports Mac hardware than Apple's own operating system!
