Silverlight, meet Google Gears

There may be no end to Microsoft's ambition, to borrow a phrase from the BBC, and that includes the future of the web. Or Internet 2 if you will. I'm not really sure how Silverlight is different from JavaFX, Ajax, and Flash/Apollo, but content controls would have to be developed on Windows even if Windows servers are not required.

As John Dowdell notes (see also his links): "MS servers are one thing, but it's likely more important MS eventually ends up as the advertising channel, and gains personalization data for that app's audience -- a server they can sell today; a service they can sell tomorrow."

Of course there's no assurance that Google is different! They weren't able to get the neocon Dan Senor from the Carlyle Group for communications, but they did get someone from the Council on Foreign Relations/The Gap. Success will probably only be achieved by promoting actual market economies and democratic politics rather than in the approaches on which the American elites rely (listen to Chalmers Johnson). Anyway it looks like Google Gears (Scoble video) might help get Adobe aligned, as the counter-assault on MS Office readies.