Has Microsoft matched Flash with Silverlight 3?

Small package

Silverlight 3.0 will still be a relatively small download - the beta is just under 5MB - but additional .NET Framework pieces can be downloaded on the fly and cached locally, so that all applications can share them. There are now more than 60 controls included. Deep linking enables URLs to point to places within your Silverlight application, which enables sane back-button support in the browser as well as being search-engine friendly.

Another Search Engine Optimization (SEO) feature is an ASP.NET add-on that mirrors dynamic content into HTML for indexing. Text and font support is improved by ClearType, though this is not in the beta. There's also support for multi-touch, but only on one operating system. "The only implementation right now that supports it is Windows 7," Guthrie said, although the API is designed to support other implementations as they become available.

Silverlight 3.0 is much improved for graphical and multimedia applications. There is a new 3D API. "You can take any control, any media element or image, and apply a 3D effect or transform to it", Guthrie said.

There is also a raw pixel API. On the media side, there's support for H.264 video and AAC audio, hardware based media acceleration for both full-screen and partial-screen applications. There is also what Guthrie called a "raw video pipeline" API, enabling custom codecs written in C#.

A new media services add-on for Internet Information Services enabled adaptive streaming, where clients get a higher or lower bit rate depending on client support and network performance. This can change dynamically in response to changing conditions.

Silverlight 3.0 is available now in beta, with full release promised for later this year. Visual design will be available in Expression Blend 3.0 and also in Visual Studio 2010, though since Silverlight 3.0 will come out before the new Visual Studio, developers will initially need to work in Visual Studio 2008 with visual preview rather than a full visual designer.

Version of 3.0 of Microsoft Expression Blend design tool will have support for SketchFlow, which lets designers add interactive features without writing code, as part of the designer to developer workflow. There is also support for importing from Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator, with full layer support.

This is impressive work, and there is no doubting Microsoft's commitment to Silverlight and the progress it has made. Microsoft's problem: sites like riastats.com show that Silverlight is only installed on a minority of browsers, currently around 20 per cent, compared to Flash on around 95 per cent.

Microsoft is being generous with its terms for encoders and streaming add-ons for Silverlight, in an effort to increase adoption. Nevertheless, for developers in search of broad reach, Flash is currently more attractive. And while Microsoft may achieve high penetration on web browsers, getting onto non-Windows mobile devices will be more challenging. ®