The New Silverlight 2

A Microsoft official's blog sheds new light on the company's Silverlight 2 browser plug-in technology.

Microsoft Readies Silverlight 2 Beta


Shedding new light on the company's Silverlight 2 browser plug-in technology, a Microsoft official wrote a blog post today that emphasized RIA (rich Internet application) development capabilities planned for an upcoming beta release.

Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, provided a list of features planned for Silverlight 2 and the beta in his blog. A Microsoft representative subsequently described the blog as the most detail provided to date on Silverlight 2.

With the Silverlight platform, Microsoft is expected to tackle Adobe and its popular Flash technology in the RIA space. Microsoft's Mix08 conference in Las Vegas in two weeks seems like the obvious place to introduce the beta as Silverlight was the star attraction at the Mix07 conference last year. The Microsoft representative would not comment on whether this would actually be the case but did acknowledge plans to ship the beta during the first quarter of this year.

Featured in version 2 is a cross-platform, cross-browser version of the .Net Framework, Guthrie said. Developers can write Silverlight applications using a .Net language, such as Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython, or IronRuby. Microsoft plans to ship support for developer/designer workflow and integration for Silverlight in its Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio tools.
The introduction of Silverlight 2, which had previously been named Silverlight 1.1, is critical to Microsoft as it battles Adobe, an analyst stressed.

"That's the one that uses the .Net Framework for programming so it can leverage all of Microsoft's developer tools," said analyst Rob Helm of Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm. "Developer tools could become Microsoft's secret weapon," since many developers already are familiar with Visual Studio and .Net Framework, he said.

The 1.0 version of Silverlight has been more geared to video, while Silverlight 2 adds .Net development and transactional capabilities. To bolster RIA development, the Beta 1 release will include a Windows Presentation Foundation UI framework for building rich Web applications. It offers a "powerful" graphics and animation engine plus support for higher-level capabilities, such as controls, layout management, data-binding, and template skinning, Guthrie said.

The Beta 1 release is 4.3 MB in size.

"Once Silverlight 2 is installed, you can browse the Web and automatically run rich Silverlight applications within your browser of choice," Guthrie said. This includes such browsers as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and others.

Rich controls in the Silverlight 2 beta include core form controls, such as TextBox and RadioButton. Built-in layout management panels, such as Grid and Panel, are offered as well. Functionality controls like Calender and DatePicker as well as data manipulation controls also are part of the beta. "The built-in controls support a rich control templating model, which enables developers and designers to collaborate together to build highly polished solutions," Guthrie said.

For networking, Silverlight 2 backs REST (Representational State Transfer), WS-*, and SOAP as well RSS, POX, and HTTP services. Cross-domain network access in Silverlight 2 enables Silverlight clients to directly access resources and data from resources on the Web. Built-in sockets networking also is included in the beta release.

Silverlight 2 features a rich .Net base class library of functionality, such as collections, generics threading, globalization, XML, and local storage. Rich APIs in the product enable HTML DOM/JavaScript integration with .Net code

Also featured is Microsoft's LINQ (Language Integrated Query) technology, which provides native query syntax for C# and Visual Basic, and LINQ to XML library support. This enables easy transformation and querying of data, Guthrie said. Local data caching and storage support are highlighted as well in Silverlight 2.

Net APIs in Silverlight "are a compatible subset of the full .Net Framework," Guthrie said.
"Silverlight 2 does not require the .Net Framework to be installed on a computer in order to run. The Silverlight setup download includes everything necessary to enable all the above features (and more we'll be talking about shortly) on a vanilla Mac OSX or Windows machine," Guthrie said.

Silverlight 2 applications can be migrated to become a desktop application using Windows Presentation Foundation and the full .Net framework.



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Microsoft's Answer to Adobe Flash

Microsoft has developed its own Flash a few months ago. Silverlight was Microsoft's answer to the ever popular Adobe Flash, providing a new foundation for web content.


Silverlight versus Flash

Adobe's Flash has been around for years, and many of the popular websites enrich their content and experience by adding Flash. Not only does it provide a way to create animation, it also provides interactivity and unique interface. But it looks like Microsoft's entry into the industry will shake things up. Adobe's Flash may have a serious rival on the business.

Microsoft's Silverlight is, according to Wikipedia, "a runtime for browser-based Rich Internet Applications, providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation". The fact that it can be written in any language using the .NET framework means it inherits the robustness and flexibility of the framework.

To be fair, Adobe's Flash is currently used by the majority of web developers. For one thing, all modern operating systems support it, and has been the de facto for web interactive controls. Developers know how to create interactive content using Flash's own scripting language, and are confident to know they only have to write the code once for different platforms.

Silverlight's entry should shake things up, with its promising feature - the ability to program it using the .NET language. Developers who are skilled in .NET programming language could easily code interactive content for Silverlight. In effect, they can create localized version and a web version of their application using the same code. The flexibility and power of the .NET framework should draw more developers into writing Silverlight applications.

Microsoft's entry into the business is late, and will take a lot of effort to race ahead of Adobe's Flash. However, Adobe has to do its own part as well.

"The biggest thing Adobe needs to bring FlexBuilder up to date with modern developer tools," said Greg DeMichillie, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "I would say they are two years behind Visual Studio."

"The other thing not to underestimate is the value of Microsoft's programming languages," he added. "C# and VB -- they are real programming languages," he said. "[Adobe's] ActionScript has certainly grown up in the last year or two, but you won't find people building industrial-strength applications with it."

While a wealth of smaller companies and startups have crowded the RIA platform space, DeMichillie said he expects only Adobe and Microsoft will emerge as true players.

"When you build a platform you need so many pieces," he said. "The other player trying to do this is Sun [with its JavaFX platform], but I don't think they have all the pieces."