Microsoft releases "Silverlight" with promise to add "Moonlight"

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, on Wednesday announced the official release of Silverlight, a Web browser plug-in for playing media files and displaying interactive Web applications. In addition, a fully compatible Linux version of Silverlight, called Moonlight, was also promised by the company.

Initially announced on April 16 at the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters conference (NAB2007) in Las Vegas, the Microsoft Silverlight is regarded as Software titan’s new multimedia tool intended to take aim at Adobe Systems' ubiquitous Flash technology.

Nearly five months after, on September 5, Microsoft released version 1.0 of its Silverlight rich media player, marking the beginning of what could be a sizzling Web video format war.

The 1.0 version of Silverlight comes embedded with built-in codec support for playing VC-1 and WMV video, and MP3 and WMA audio within a browser. In addition, it will have the ability to progressively download and play media content from any web-server, and enable users to create rich UI and animations, and blend vector graphics with HTML to create compelling content experiences. Silverlight also incorporates an optional support for built-in media streaming and an ability to makes it easy to build rich video player interactive experiences.

Besides launching the first version of “Flash Killer”, Silverlight, Microsoft also announced its formal partnership with Novell Inc. to provide Silverlight for Linux. The Redmond, Washington-based software mammoth said it will fully collaborate with Novell on the Linux version of Silverlight, dubbed Moonlight.

"We have been listening to customer feedback and the message was clear: 'We want Silverlight enabled on Linux," said Microsoft senior product manager Parimal Deshpande.

Silverlight, which currently works with Windows and Macintosh, would also run on Linux clients once Novell's Moonlight project completes.

"Microsoft will be delivering Silverlight Media Codecs for Linux, and Novell will be building a 100 percent compatible Silverlight runtime implementation," Scott Guthrie, a general manager in Microsoft's developer division wrote in a blog posted on company’s Website.

Under the partnership, Microsoft will also supply Novell with software to test and determine if Silverlight properly works on 32-bit and 64-bit machines running Suse Linux, Red Hat and Ubuntu.

Moonlight, which is expected to be ready within six months, will run on all Linux distributions, and support FireFox, Konqueror, and Opera browsers. It will support both the JavaScript programming model available in Silverlight 1.0, as well as the full .NET programming model the company will enable in Silverlight 1.1, ScottGu said.

Microsoft described the Silverlight on its Website as a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. It offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications, the software giant said.

Senior Microsoft VP Bob Muglia touted Silverlight as the “only solution in the market today that enables content creators to tap into the broad ecosystem for Windows Media technologies while taking the Web's rich interactive application experience to new levels."

Microsoft already has gained partners for the format that include the Home Shopping Network, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the TV show Entertainment Tonight, Netflix, Major League Baseball, and Entertinamnet Weekly, to name a few.