The web is busy marking the launch of Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 which was supposed to be the “flash killer”. It is supposed to be a “cross” what have you to deliver offline “Rich Internet Applications”. Along with Silverline 3 are on the offer “Expression Studio 3″ and “Expression Blend 3″ , featuring “Sketch Flow”. Silverlight 3 includes incentives for enterprises, web developers and content developers who can extend the capabilities of Silverlight3 to Desktops also.
That leaves the mortal surfers like you and me for whom Silverlight 3 provides “Smooth Video Streaming” experience. Depending on the band width one uses it optimizes the video capabilities. The features also include better audio, video, 3 D Graphics and data binding.
The announcement and release time are unfortunately going against Microsoft because the impact that HTML 5 will have on making technologies like Flash, Silverlight 3 and Java FX obsolete has been discussed at length on the web.
Already with the release of the recent browsers netizens are getting a feel of the speed of functioning and development of open ended applications based on the HTML 5 standard. Developers of Browsers other than Microsoft have already come together and are resolved not to let proprietary technologies call the shots on the web.
The problem for Microsoft is that it is the only odd one out. It has made heavy investments in Silverlight and has also released its Internet Explorer 8 and people are going to question the irrelevancy and the wisdom of duplication If the present day browsers can handle these things with consummate ease.
The event has come at a time when the web is agog with the news of Chrome OS and Microsoft’s befitting reply that is to come on Monday. If few had noticed the arrival of Silverlight at this juncture it is not their fault. But if few notice Silverlight 3 after its official release, Microsoft would be caught flat footed a second time. It is only slightly more than a month since the arrival of bing and people already know how bing is faring
