Microsoft reveals road map for Silverlight

Can Microsoft's new competitor topple Adobe Flash?

Press Release: May 8th, 2007

Previewed at NAB and officially launched at the MIX07 (Microsoft's annual conference for web developers and decision makers), Microsoft has unveiled their competitive product to Adobe's Flash. Whether Microsoft can overcome the incredible momentum behind Flash to get their Silverlight product accepted (formerly known as Windows Presentation Framework/Everywhere) is still uncertain but Silverlight is an important shift in the distribution landscape.

Silverlight is superficially like Flash in that it supports video playback and a very robust programming environment, but unlike Flash, Silverlight uses Windows Media Video and modern programming languages. In fact Silverlight is far more flexible and powerful when it comes to interactive web applications within a browser. Silverlight supports all of the AJAX-goodness we've come to expect from modern websites, but it also supports .NET (platform and tools), C#, Python, Javascript, ASP.NET, Visual Basic and Ruby with a real time compiler that is included. Using the included engine rather than the browser's for Javascript, for example, speeds up Javascript functionality about 10x.

However the most important implications of support for all these programming languages is that much more can be done. By using what is termed "signed code" Silverlight gets around many limitations of the browser's "sandbox" (a limited area where it can work to avoid security problems). Silverlight applications can support local storage, reading and writing to files programmically. This capability, and solid support for most modern web-side architectures, ensures the strong capabilities of Silverlight.

Surprisingly for Microsoft, Silverlight is supported across Mac OS X and Windows in Internet Explorer (Windows), FireFox (both) and Safari (OS X). Linux support has been promised by the developers behind Wine.

Silverlight is important because:

• It provides a new, modern, browser-based development environment;
• It allows for Windows Media, with DRM, to be played on a Macintosh (DRM-infected content is not supported by Flip4Mac);
• It provides a competitor for Flash, driving Adobe to do even more with the tools they purchased from Macromedia.

Silverlight is a small, downloadable browser plug-in. The support for Windows Media DRM provides lets companies like Netflix create a player for OS X.

For creation of Silverlight content, Microsoft has released a suite of tools, called Expression Studio (now shipping). Expression Studio is Microsoft's tools for creative designers and programmers. Different modules can be used to build different components of the application simultaneously, improving development productivity.

Microsoft has also wrapped streaming services and API calls into the platform. Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 beta or 1.1 alpha (with support for Ruby and Python) are available for download now.

The MIX07 event featured Silverlight partners including Avenue A | Razorfish, BBC, CBS Television Stations, Disney, Electric Rain Inc., Facebook, frog design inc., gotomedia inc, IdentityMine Inc., Metaliq and Schematic. Metaliq's Top Banana is particularly good at showing Silverlight's potential by implementing a video editing application in a browser.