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MIX08 – Microsoft Introduces Silverlight 2
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MIX is a Microsoft event for developers. Held each Spring at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, MIX sees Microsoft showcasing its Web technologies to an audience full of designers, software architects and prominent speakers.
Last year’s MIX saw Microsoft launching Silverlight platform for delivering breathtaking web experience to the end user. Touted as a competitor to Adobe Flash, a large number of developers readily took to testing applications on the Silverlight platform.
The major improvement over version 1 is the ability to run any .NET language includingVB.NET and C#. This is because the present version includes a version of .NET Framework.implementing the full Common Language Runtime.
Now in its first Beta, Silverlight 2 is a mere 4.3 MB download and can be installed in under
10 seconds flat.
Surprisingly DoubleClick which Google acquired recently showcased its Software Development Kit (SDK) for in-stream advertising.
Major League Baseball, Fox Movies, and NBCOlympics.com at MSN are among the organizations that have said they’ll use Silverlight.
Microsoft is getting pretty aggressive on the Web front now. Although this can be judged from Microsoft’s bid to acquire Yahoo alone, the company’s strong point has always been its association and support with the developers. And here we see Microsoft excercising this once again. By making sure that more and more developers have access to their Silverlight platform SDK, Microsoft is trying hard to do a Windows with the Web. It will, however be much harder this time. Because, unlike in the 1980’s the battleground is the Internet and (thankfully) the end consumer has a choice.
Silverlight is actually a good product. If Microsoft winds this time, it will be because of technologies like this, rather than monopolistic practices.
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