In Major Blow to Silverlight MLBAM Moves to Flash

At Adobe MAX today, CTO Kevin Lynch announced that MLB Advanced Media has selected Flash to power all live and on-demand video. This is a major announcement and a resounding blow to Microsoft as MLB has used Windows Media for live video since MLB.com started streaming games in 2003.

MLB was initially on-board with the launch of Silverlight at NAB last year, and at last year’s MIX conference MLB showcased what they thought would be the innovative potential of the platform.

Because MLBAM’s video platform has used windows media content this will be a costly change, but MLB has always been on the forefront of online video innovation. The move to Flash after initially flirting with Silverlight shows that despite the ease of transitioning from a windows media workflow to Silverlight there are major drawbacks to it as compared to Flash.

Considering MLB’s longstanding relationship with Microsoft since the early days of live video streaming and the fact that MLB was potentially Silverlight’s largest customer, this is a major defection. One unmentioned but interesting aspect of this news, MLB has always been very protective of its digital content, a drawback to Flash has always been its lack of DRM. MLB’s decision indicates a level of confidence in Adobe’s DRM that hasn’t been show yet by most rights holders.

MLB also announced they would release a downloadable AIR based desktop RIA which will allow fans to access content outside the browser.

While the battle rages on, Flash has 98% penetration versus Silverlight’s 25% Microsoft continues to have a rough time convincing media companies to get on board with Silverlight without paying them to do so. Instead of releasing a new product in Silverlight that does more than Flash Microsoft is still trying to play catchup, and they’re falling further and further behind.