Web Forefront

First off, let me try and debunk a few of the technical merits on which Silverlight is being heavily marketed, which in my opinion simply don't seem to bring anything new.

• Silverlight run-time for rich media: In this space I have read everything from "You can download and stream high quality video, both DVD and HD video at up to 720p quality within any browser" and "Silverlight uses standard compatible video codex allowing you to produce movies using Windows and then stream them to a Mac or an Xbox". This is a crowded place and one that already works at that. I really don't see any technical difference to this being handled by an advanced media player or for that matter with applications that upon loading, embed none other than 'Windows Media Player' or some other player. But I will point you to the FAQ on the relationship between Silverlight and Windows Media Player , so you can make up your own mind on this point.
• Silverlight as a cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in for Rich Interactive Application (RIA) : The RIA reference is taken from the Adobe/Macromedia/Flash playbook. The R-ich is still pretty much a Flash stronghold, which refers to anything beyond the capabilities of vanilla browser languages / technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS), the I-nteractive on the other hand is a dwindling term with the appearance of AJAX , an approach which has brought 'Interactive' within the reach of pretty much any application, irrespective of it being rich or non-rich. As far as Silverlight delivering the same or better features than ActionScript -- Flash's programming language -- while yet to be seen and welcomed as an alternative, it would still be a hard sell to the entrenched Flash community.

So what's new then ? XAML executed on browsers, that's what the Silverlight plug-in will give you that nothing else will. XAML or Extensible Application Markup Language, is one of the latest undertakings by Microsoft to standardize a presentation markup language into their all-encompassing product-line WinFX. ( You can read an earlier entry I wrote on XAML and WPF here: Windows Presentation Foundation / XAML : Tough sell ).

In hindsight, the 'tough sell' for XAML I mentioned in the previous entry was precisely for the lack of support on the browser, well it seems the WinFX strategy was obviously one step ahead of any ranting blogger like myself. So is XAML really that powerful ? Well if your a Microsoft shop it will be a boon no matter what, you see XAML is also set to be rolled out as a Desktop presentation format (Windows Presentation Foundation), what this means is that your Desktop presentation interface written in XAML will be equally transparent when used in a browser thanks to none other than Silverlight, now that's really something new as far as application development is concerned, reusing the same non-web desktop interface on the browser!

Will XAML perform equally on the browser and on the desktop ? Well simple applications seem to be rendered fine, guess time will tell if XAML along with Silverlight will bring a new era of re-usability for desktop and web interfaces.

Update: Wrote a more extensive article on Silverlight and its place in the Microsoft product line, which also includes some XAML code snippets: Silverlight : The rich client for the browser