How long will ESRI support Silverlight?

[AngelGonzalez]

I need to start a new project soon(Web ADF conversation) but I need to know how long will ESRI support Silverlight? Microsoft has stated that they will support Silverlight until 2021, but will ESRI support it that long? Will ESRI support Silverlight for at least 5 years? Do I need to move over to the darkside (a.k.a. Javascript)?  If I start a project now and ESRI decides to "depreciate" Silverlight in two years then I have wasted my time and need to redo my application in Javascript. In order to justify the use of Silverlight to my Manager I need to know that  Silverlight will be supported for a guarantee number of years by ESRI, but what is that number?   Or is the future  Javascript & HTML5.

Your thoughts.

[MattHensley]

I'm very interested in the answer to this too now that Microsoft has made this announcement. In addition to the initial question I would like to know the number of people working on the Silverlight dev team at ESRI if the silverlight API is being supported. At the dev conference last month we were told that the Flex API dev team is getting reduced to about 4 people. Is the same thing happening with Silverlight API at ESRI?

One more additional comment and FYI for ESRI, even though javascript and HTML 5 are the flavor of the month right now, it is much much easier, faster, and cost effective to develop with a plugin client side tool like Silverlight and Flex.

Thank you in advance for your response.

[RichardWatson]

I don't believe that ESRI has made any announcements with regards to dropping support for either Silverlight or Flex.

I attended the recent Developer Summit and it is crystal clear that ESRI, and the industry in general, is investing heavily in JavaScript and not the browser plugins.  I don't speak for ESRI but it seem obvious that at least part of the Silverlight team has moved over to work on ArcGIS for Windows Store Apps.

It is challenging at the moment because the plugin solutions offer much richer and more mature functionality than does JavaScript.  I think that which platform you choose depends on what your requirements are.  For example, if you are developing a browser based solution and only need to run on platforms which are supported by the plugin then picking that can make a lot of sense.  On the other hand, if you are developing a disconnected solution then none of the web solutions, including JavaScript, is the correct choice.  In this case you need one of the platform specific solutions based on the ArcGIS Runtime.

If you are working on a new web application, have the time, and the functionality needed then developing in JavaScript makes a lot of sense because it is the future.