Thursday, 6 September 2007

Silverlight Launched, Linux version Coming Soon

As expected and on schedule, Microsoft finally released its Silverlight multimedia player for Windows and Mac and promised to launch a Linux version soon...

As expected and on schedule, Microsoft finally released its Silverlight multimedia player for Windows and Mac and promised to launch a Linux version soon. It said it is working with Novell, its open source partner, to launch Linux version of Silverlight.

Microsoft said it is working alongside Novell ‘s team to come out with the open source version of Silverlight dubbed ‘Moonlight.’ The spinoff project will enable open source developers to design high-definition interactive media applications on the Linux platform.

Microsoft’s senior product manager Parimal Deshpande said, "We have been listening to customer feedback and the message was clear, 'we want Silverlight enabled on Linux." And this is what led Microsoft to bank on Novell, a company with which Microsoft tied up last year raising hue and cry everywhere.

Silverlight is Microsoft's reply to Adobe’s Flash that has been dominating the web animation and interactive multimedia content for quite a long time. Silverlight will allow users to play media content from any web-server and has the option to support built-in media streaming. It will also allow for rich UI and animations and supports a JavaScript programming model.

However one thing that people need to know. Flash is installed on 90 per cent of the world's PCs. Silverlight starts with a market penetration of zero. Silverlight also requires users to download the runtime client, which not many are comfortable doing.