What’s more interesting is that this is a relaunch. From what I understand from a quick google this was previously an application written in WPF (the Windows Presentation Foundation), a platform based in the murky world of .NET, and also one that won’t run on my Mac making it 100% inaccessible to me, and thus rendering it completely useless.

So, WPF lasted 2 and a half years before it got ditched, but it’s not entirely clear as to why. One theory is that the original application was originally sponsored in some way by Microsoft*, as it was unveiled by Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Gates in Seattle on April 28th 2006. It may be that the NYT have since reviewed user feedback (like: let me install it on my frickin Mac!) or they are super impressed by the new Text Layout framework.

To some extent this also echoes the recent switch of the MLB.com from Silverlight to Flash for streamed content. Again, a “collaboration” between Microsoft and MLB, that has now been ditched in favour of the Adobe technology again.

Now, the conspiracy theorists out there might suggest that Microsoft paid for these apps to be built in order to get the technologies out there, but now the media companies are reacting to customer feedback and ditching them in favour of the flash platform for various reasons.

I would genuinely like to know what’s going on here. Is it a case of the media companies are choosing the better technology, or are Adobe quietly paying out to these companies to get Flash out there, in order to kill the opposition? Answers on the back of a postcard please…

Interesting stuff…

* I’ve just found on Wikipedia that this was a “collaboration“

EDIT: It also appears that in the UK Channel 4 have recently done the same thing, previously having used a “Windows-only DRM”, and now having switched to Flash.

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