Topic: Slashdot: Microsoft Moves in on the Graphics Market

quote:

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Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft has quietly been building up graphics-related R&D, reports Computerworld, noting that Microsoft employees will be presenting one out of every eight papers at SIGGRAPH 2007. And it's not a fluke ? other recent Microsoft graphics-related developments include Photosynth, which has been discussed on Slashdot several times, as well as the Silverlight/Expression Studio graphics suite, which will compete with Adobe's Flash/Illustrator/Lightroom/Dreamweaver offerings. At SIGGRAPH, Microsoft will supposedly have demos of some new software including image deblurring tools and Soft Scissors, which 'solves the vexing problem of how to cut and paste an image from one background to another if the image's edges ? hair blowing in the wind, blades of grass ? are very complex.' Microsoft's competitors aren't sitting down. Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems, and Google has also been building up its own graphics-related software products, such as the 3D modeling tool SketchUp, and Google Earth."

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http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/09/1816211

Well, marketing guys banter aside, Silverlight is Flash, only twice less good, and Photosynth
is Picasa, didn't test it though.

Personally, I am gonna remove all my MS applications from Windows next time I login to that : Media Player, IE, Live messenger,
and leave my msn "live" account to die, enough is enough - I don't want their quirky products and false promises regarding the revolution
that they will never be able to deliver - .Net was a pale copy of some core Java concepts
and it has proved very quirky to me in a work context, now these, I tried the silverlight RC, suck as much while still being copies
- and God knows I am not fond of Java and technologies that are not spider friendly, but I must admit Microsoft doesn't even come close
to delivering a rival to Flash yet.

Try it, cry it.