Microsoft launches Silverlight platform - Adobe Flash "killer"

Microsoft hopes to squeeze Adobe Flash out of the market. New technology Microsoft Silverlight (previously known under the code name Windows Presentatoin Foundation Everywhere (WPF / E) ) will provide video transmission, as well as interactive functionality directly from the website. From the very beginning, the plugin works under Firefox and Safari, that is, Microsoft is ready to do anything to make technology a global standard.

Forest Key, director of product management for Microsoft Server and Tools, told Forest News about this news today at the conference of the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas. The technology is based on the new Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) graphics engine.

Microsoft has already gained the support of content publishers and partners. Among them are Akamai Technologies, Brightcove, Eyeblaster, Major League Baseball and Netflix.

For widespread dissemination, the Microsoft platform needs support from three sides. In addition to content publishers, it is also the general public (there will be no problem with this if Silverlight is included in the mandatory update of IE) and developers who need to create new interactive Silverlight applications.
')
In the future, other Microsoft key products will be optimized for Silverlight, including the Windows Server IIS7 Media Pack plugin for Internet broadcasting. Another key component will be Microsoft Expression development tools (expected in June) for creating interactive Internet applications - an alternative to the recently introduced Adobe Creative Suite 3.

According to experts, the new Microsoft platform will be difficult to achieve the level of popularity of Adobe Flash, however, users of Microsoft’s unified web infrastructure may begin the transition to Silverlight and Expression quite soon.

Work on the technology Silverlight lasted more than two years. The beta version of the plugin is scheduled for release on April 30, the size of the distribution will not exceed 2 MB.

Adobe is also not sleeping in a hat, and has already announced the release of the universal offline player Adobe Media Player.

via Infoworld