Actually, this is *not* inconsistent at all. You don't have to be Microsoft to realize that what Flash and Silverlight are mainly good for is *animation*.
The fact that Adobe has tried to turn it into a complete application infrastructure is a *mistake* as far as I and a lot of other folks are concerned.
Oh boy, I bet we bring in some Flash-fan-boys in quick with that one!!!!
MS/Ajax.Net has its weaknesses, but a lot of us who've used it have seen that the main problem is that its just too much work to get a really good client-side library going and get a base of 3rd party widgets to go along with it. By bringing in jQuery, they take care of that problem, while moving the server backend of Ajax.Net in to do the integration with data and server app code. Its that part that makes Ajax.Net really cool, and the combination of the two is a clear gauntlet thrown down in front of Ruby on Rails and GWT (which really doesn't have very good server-side integration, even if the ability to "do everything in Java" is there).
Silverlight is pretty cool too, but *not* for hard-core business app development, and neither is Flash.
Anyone who wants to debate that one, open a new thread though!
Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right,
Buffy
