Mix07: Ecosystem around Microsoft's Expression, Silverlight already emerging

ComputerWorld
by Eric Lai

May 3, 2007

The just-completed Mix07 conference was the launching pad for more than just Microsoft Corp.'s Expression and Silverlight products.

Independent software vendors also demonstrated upcoming products that work within the same Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) graphical subsystem as Expression and Silverlight.

Boulder, Colo.-based Electric Rain released Harmony, which it claims is the first software to convert applications built in Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash to the XAML code used by Expression and Silverlight. It also showed off beta software called StandOut Presentation Solution, which CEO Mike Soucie said is similar to Microsoft's popular PowerPoint software.

But PowerPoint remains stuck in a slide-based paradigm and requires "a lot of finessing" for designers wanting to add audio or video elements, said Soucie. By contrast, StandOut lets them create true multimedia presentations that approach television broadcast quality, he said.

Another way designers create slick presentations today is using Flash. But according to Ken Martin, CEO of Blitz, a Beverly Hills interactive advertising agency, Flash is less seamlessly integrated with other design tools compared with StandOut's integration with Expression via the common XAML code underlying all elements and projects.

Flash presentations are also more difficult to break down into component elements and recycle, says Martin. That means all projects are "one-offs" that "need to be created from scratch almost every time," forcing agencies like Blitz to charge more money for Flash-based presentations.

Finally, Flash presentations can't be easily edited by a nondesigner, Martin said. An executive who needs to change his or her presentation in a hotel room the night before a speech is stuck, said Martin. By contrast, the StandOut software will eventually come in both professional and personal editions. The latter will let presenters easily change their presentations at the last moment.

Blitz has already created a sample presentation for Starbucksdavisa video demonstration of the Starbucks presentation at Mix07 is available online.

StandOut will run on Windows PCs only. It will cost about $500 for a professional designer edition and between $300 to $400 for the personal edition, Soucie said. Electric Rain hopes to release StandOut by September.

Files created by StandOut, even those using high-definition video, are not as large as one might expect. The four-minute Starbucks presentation is about 20MB, according to Martin.

Although StandOut has its own file format, presentations will eventually be exportable to .exe format and to Silverlight, Soucie said.

Another company, Tacoma, Wash.-based IdentityMine, released a community technology preview of a designer tool kit called Blendables Essentials, which plugs into Microsoft Expression Blend. It provides custom controls that are easier for designers to learn and use, according to the company. IdentityMine eventually expects to release a whole line of Blendables tools aimed at supplementing WPF applications.

Another company, Infragistics, officially released NetAdvantage for WPF 2007 Volume 1 before the Mix07 conference. NetAdvantage provides a set of add-on controls to aid developers in creating user interfaces for data-intensive applications.