Philip Brittan's Blog

Avalon: A new UI for Windows

Avalon gives Microsoft an opportunity to demonstrate its leverage over the user experience and to shake up competitors.

There is a lot of buzz in the Microsoft community these days in advance of the first public educational events around 'Avalon', one of the many new pieces of the Longhorn version of Windows. Avalon is the new Windows API, and it apparently represents a major jump in UI capabilities. Part of its value proposition is in the ease of use to developers and part in the experience for end users.

In order to increase developer productivity, Avalon will rationalize and reduce the number of APIs in the Win32 stack from over 70,000 down to 8,000.

On the user experience side, Avalon will feature advanced support for 2D and 3D vector graphics as well as standard GUI widgets. Some descriptions of Avalon suggest that it is more comprehensive than just the graphics layer, and will incorporate support for paradigm-shifting "task-oriented" UIs.

Microsoft has already said that they will be releasing a version of Microsoft Office for Longhorn based on Avalon, which should help drive user demand for Avalon’s capabilities.

I see several immediate ramifications for this:

1. It is a shot across the bow of Macromedia Flash MX. Flash has traditionally been focused on adding real-time vector graphics to Web pages for decoration or on-line advertising. Microsoft played along with Macromedia, bundling Flash into IE, because it never really cared about those fluffy things. But in the last year or so, Macromedia has been actively re-positioning Flash (now called Flash MX) as an alternative for building the user interfaces for enterprise applications -- smack into Microsoft’s home turf. It has been inevitable that Microsoft would respond at some point (there were early rumors that Microsoft might even try to buy Macromedia), and now it seems to be doing that with Avalon. Even though Longhorn isn’t due out until 2005, the mere fact that Microsoft will be baking into Windows the same kind of real-time 2D and 3D vector graphics capabilities that Flash promises, nicely integrated into same API layers as standard GUI widgets, could create enough FUD to slow down companies considering Flash MX. The fact that Flash is a client-side UI execution engine, just like Microsoft technology, means that it doesn’t have a strong differentiation over a Microsoft offering. Strategically, Microsoft can potentially always turn off its bundling deals with Macromedia, leaving them high and dry.
   
   
2. Introducing a major change in the UI API means giving Java a good shake. It is likely that it will take client-side Java long time to support the new capabilities of Avalon. If Microsoft can get its users addicted to the new paradigm (by using it in Office, which they plan), then they make Java look even more out-dated on the client side.
   
   
3. As I have argued elsewhere, Microsoft doesn't really like the idea of browser-delivered apps because it weakens the Microsoft desktop. Just as with Java, if Avalon gives users an amazing experience which is just not available through the browser, then browser-based apps don't seem like such a good idea to users. Alternatively, the browser might support these capabilities, but only through IE when powered by IIS on a Windows server.
   
   
4. Longhorn requires hefty hardware support, so Microsoft will undoubtedly time release to coincide with a price/performance level for new PCs that will allow them to encourage a massive hardware churn. That means that the Longhorn release will likely be coordinated with hardware partners like Intel and Dell.
   
   
5. The depth dimension of the desktop is catching on. Sun’s Project Looking glass uses depth by letting users angle windows away from them, thus using less of the 2D space of the desktop while still giving users an oblique view of what’s in the window. Microsoft’s new desktop, Aero, which relies heavily on the capabilities of Avalon, also makes more use of the 3rd desktop dimension by supporting transparent windows (so you can see the whole stack underneath at once), and also supporting real-time window rotation.

Of course, a rich thin client technology could take advantage of all the advanced features of Avalon and still let the business logic be powered by Java.

Comments

• Lots of displacement
  In a business context, users are usually interested in getting their work done quickly without crashing.

  API's have let coders create rounded windows and translucent effects for years, but where are all the applications that use this?

  The people who would benefit most from a cleaner api have probably moved on, and if not, would just be annoyed by all the code it broke.

  Seems like a lot of people are using java, .net, mfc, vb, wxwindows, qt or anything else that provides an easier to use or easier to port layer of abstraction, including web apps.

  This seems like an old trick that too many people fell for in the not-to-distant past. I'll worry about it next time I get a requirement that reads, "all windows must have rounded-corners".

  Posted by: d_bleyl on September 30, 2003 at 07:41 AM

• they are at least 2 years behind apple
  check out quartz extreme
  http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html

  Posted by: mingfang on September 30, 2003 at 09:15 AM

• That much cause for excitement?
  I somehow refuse to believe that they can pull off something revolutionary, as the article suggests. Especially if they're trying to wow the users as well as the developers.

  In any case, though, the Java UI experience is in need of an overhaul, and that I am more concerned about.

  Posted by: sumitkishore on September 30, 2003 at 09:52 AM

• Simple is beautiful
  >>reduce the number of APIs in the Win32 stack from over 70,000 down to 8,000.<<

  Very good, now what about Java

  Posted by: lee on October 01, 2003 at 04:50 AM

• Macromedia with Sun/Linux?
  What if Macromedia teams-up with other companies (Sun, Mandrake/Red Hat and other that makes Linux distributions ecc...) to create a UI based on flash for linux and/or Java?
  Is this so impossible/irrealistic?

  I have always thought that Flash is a really beautiful technology and I dream the day that it would be used as a GUI for some OS.
  It seems that MS is doing it now... why not try to win the "race"?

  ...just my naif dream :)

  Posted by: ildella on October 01, 2003 at 09:50 AM

• Microsoft is not about technological superiority.
  Microsoft is about understanding the pulse of the people and communicating with them.

  Posted by: lee on October 07, 2003 at 05:55 AM

• Simple is beautiful
  all written in c and c++ with no inherent security. Should remain an excellent virus platform after it stablilizes

  Posted by: jhogan on October 14, 2003 at 11:58 AM

• Simple is beautiful
  With freedom comes responsibility :).

  Posted by: lee on October 19, 2003 at 04:13 AM

• Flash Divide
  For those not aware, MX is old. The new version of Flash sports a new language based on Java, a new coding framework based on Java (swing or something?), and a new look as well as Royale, a server-side version for JSP programmers (Generator reborn), as well as Central, a client-side app used to distribute and purchase Flash applications. Finally, Flashcom has been out for awhile, and combined with Breeze, video-conference apps, both custom and enterprise level are already a reality.

  The competition is fantastic, specially 2 years from now, and I look forward to knowing the benefits and hindrances of both. Although Flash currently doesn't have much hardware accerleration (benefits from some pentiums...whoopudeedoo....) if it gets 3D, it'll definately be a rival. We'll see how Longhorn's new IE plays nice or not to really dictate the future of the web app.

  Posted by: jesterxl on October 27, 2003 at 01:59 PM

• Lots of displacement
  for a (somewhat) practical application utilizing the power of avalon, have a look at the demo at this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/productinfo/

  pretty good for a pre-alpha release of an OS.

  ps: i really dug your series on .Net vs Java!

  Posted by: jaypatrick on January 15, 2004 at 11:08 AM

• java
  I'm not sure I see the threat to java the same way.

  Either avalon is accessible through C, .net, or both.

  If C, then JNI can be used to call it from java. If .net, then some form of bridge can be used to call it from java.

  After all, there are a number of MS-specific things ONLY available through COM. Well, if you need those, you just use a COM bridge/wrapper.

  But obviously it does call into question certain ways of developing java GUIs... swing for example is a little bit difficult when it comes to integrating native APIs. But SWT makes that easier. So maybe things like this will start to tip the SWT/Swing battle.

  But one thing remains certain: it will always be tempting to write apps directly to the latest microsoft API. and those who succumb to that temptation will always be penalized, because when the next thing comes along they will be stuck. A java programmer might be quicker to categorize avalon as a sort of foreign api that needs to be hidden behind wrappers and interfaces to be used. A hard-coder wont. And guess which app will be portable to the "next great thing" a few years later.

  I myself have gotten burned or stuck with things written in VB6, J++, MFC. And I won't do it again. Keep on innovating, MS, I like it (I'm not being sarcastic), but I won't code to you directly anymore.

  Certainly, flash will feel the pain. Flash doesnt offer multiple ways of doing user interfaces like java does. But java is a layer on top of the os, and if avalon is "part" of the os, in a sense they are orthogonal.

  Posted by: kenlars99 on February 09, 2004 at 12:06 PM

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