Now rumors are swirling that Microsoft may be ready to release Silverlight 2 as early as next Monday.

Due to a press release about a conference call to be given by Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of the .NET Developer Division, rumors are swirling that Microsoft will be releasing Silverlight 2 as early as next Monday. Guthrie noted that Microsoft will make "a significant announcement related to Microsoft Silverlight," next Monday at 9 a.m. PT. It seems more than likely that the rumors could be true. A developer SDK for Silverlight 2 has already been sent out and Silverlight 2 Beta 2 was released months ago. Looks like Silverlight 2 might be ready to use.

Timetables and Changes

If the rumors are true, this would mean the timetable release for Silverlight 2 was a little off. It was expected by the Summer and it's clearly Fall right now. Nevertheless, a list of upcoming changes has been published, which will be important for developers using Silverlight to review.

However, none of these changes will be important if many don't use Silverlight or develop applications for the platform. So to the developers we ask, how are excited are you about Silverlight 2?

Now Microsoft has sweetened the deal by offering revenue sharing via another one of their services, adCenter. Offering revenue sharing is a smart move from Microsoft. It is hard to imagine that they're really expecting the Silverlight Streaming service to be a big money maker on its own -- i.e., Microsoft shouldn't expect it to compete with YouTube or other video CDNs -- but as a way to push the Silverlight technology to the public, it's a smart idea and revenue sharing should attract more developers to it.

If you're a developer looking for a free place to host your streaming videos, and you're choosing between YouTube and Silverlight Streaming, as long as you can keep it under 10GB/5TB, the prospect of revenue share might tip the scales in favor of Microsoft's service.

"You can build desktop applications with Windows Presentation Foundation, build web-only applications with ASP.NET AJAX and now the hybrid Rich Internet Applications with Silverlight."

The enhancements announced today for Silverlight include integration with .NET and support for dynamic languages - including Python and Ruby. Microsoft also announced new tool support for building Silverlight applications, with Expression Studio and the next edition of Visual Studio, code-named "Orcas".

Tell us what you think of the new-look Silverlight in this week's poll, below.

Also let's not forget that Adobe has been in this game for far longer than Microsoft, so it seems odd that Silverlight is being pumped up as a Flash killer. Don't get me wrong, Silverlight is very promising. From a technical standpoint, it would be difficult to argue against Nik Cubrilovic's detailed review. But let's not call it a Flash-killer just yet, until we see some actual web app evidence that it's better than Flash. Will designers take to Silverlight like they adopted Flash on masse? That is probably the key question.

In any case, our poll suggests that most people are indeed impressed by Silverlight. 23% rated it "awesome" and 32% "promising". So over half give it the thumbs up. 25% of respondants rated it "meh", but only 9% said it's terrible. Also there's a little confusion out there about what Silverlight is and does, with 11% not sure what it is. We'll look to address that this week with an explanatory post about Silverlight.

Full results:

Question: Microsoft announced on Monday a raft of new features for Silverlight, its web development platform. What do you think of it?

It's awesome! 23% (116 votes)
It looks promising, but need to test it out more 32% (163 votes)
Meh 25% (124 votes)
It's terrible! 9% (44 votes)
I don't get what it is... 11% (55 votes)
Total Votes: 502

Also today Microsoft announced they'll work with Novell to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, in a project called Moonlight - based on the open source Mono project of the same name. As CNET reported in June, work on the Moonlight plug-in was started in May, after Microsoft's Mix conference - where Silverlight was first announced.

In the announcement, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie emphasized the cross-platform nature of Silverlight, noting that "Silverlight will further accelerate the growth in rich interactive applications by giving developers and designers new options for delivering great experiences that span the Web, PC, phone and other devices."

Example Silverlight app

Securing Nokia’s support marks a major coup for Microsoft. Having already committed to developing a version of Silverlight for all three major desktop Operating Systems (Windows, Mac OS and Linux), gaining access to Nokia’s millions of mobile users brings Microsoft one step closer to fulfilling the promise of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework with genuine ‘write once, run anywhere’ capabilities — the holy grail of software development.

However, notes last100 editor Steve O'Hear, while scoring a partnership with Nokia is a huge win for Microsoft, it hardly means that Silverlight will be the de facto mobile RIA platform. RIM, Apple, Adobe, and Google each have their own platforms for mobile RIA development.

For the full scoop, check out the post at last100 and be sure to subscribe to last100's RSS feed to keep up on all the latest digital lifestyle news.

• Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 (Q1CY08 with limited (non commercial) Go-Live) -- this was released at Mix ‘08 in early March
• Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 (Q2CY08 with Go-Live)
• Silverlight 2.0 RTM (Summer 2008) -- Exact timing TBD
• Silverlight v.next -- We are working on a v.Next plan and have nothing to announce at this time
• Silverlight for mobile -- No date available

Thapliyal also promised backwards compatibility between Silverlight 1.0 and 2.0 and that the Beta 2 of the second version of Microsoft's Flash-alike will be very similar to the final version. Beta 2 is espected at the end of May.

Interestingly, Thapliyal takes a slight shot at Adobe in the Silverlight 2.0 FAQ, with a question asking how Silverlight's market penetration compares to Adobe's claim of 98.8% of all Internet users. "We’ve announced that we’re at about 1.5 million downloads per day at the moment. The problem with putting out some % values like Adobe do is that it is hard to be accurate and hard to verify," Thapliyal writes, which is perhaps an indication that Microsoft doesn't buy Adobe's published numbers.

Right now, Silverlight's main strength has been video, and Microsoft's skill in forging corporate partnerships -- like the ones it has formed with the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, NBC, and Nokia -- should help push the client out to users. Silverlight 2.0 promises to integrate more of the WPF UI programming controls, as well as other bits which could make it a better option for Rich Internet App creation than the first version. It will be interesting to see what sort of things are made with Silverlight after the final release of version 2.0 ships, and if it can make a dent in Flash's dominating marketshare.

Next Ray Ozzie outlined two types of web apps - what he calls "Universal Web" apps, meaning ajax, html, browser based apps. Then he discussed "Experience First" apps - xbox, mobile, pc desktop apps. He pointed out that "the most sucessful solutions have an element each of universal web and experience first".

Ray said that a common design pattern has emerged for this new era of desktop/web/mobile apps - desktop for richness, browser for tagging and other collaboration/community features, mobile for location-specific information.

Ray said that this "brings together the best of the web, best of the desktop and best of the device - using the service as a hub". He also noted that to build these apps, developers and designers can use all kinds of platforms - some of them not Microsoft's. He may've been referring to Adobe Apollo, for example. (Incidentally, I visited Adobe's HQ last week and there is a post on that coming soon).

Silverlight Extended

Next up, Ray Ozzie announced some major upgrades to the Silverlight product, which was first announced a couple of weeks ago. There are 3 main parts to Silverlight now, said Ozzie.

Silverlight is targeted purely at the universal web - it's a cross platform runtime for video delivery. This was the part that was announced two weeks ago.

2) .NET

The big news today is that Microsoft is bringing Silverlight into the .NET environment, making it a full-fledged RIA deployment platform. Ray referred to Silverlight as a "first class .net runtime environment" and noted that "Silverlight brings .net to the universal web".

Also, Microsoft is officially shipping Expression Studio today.

In other news, there are new APIs and html-based controls being released - for Live contacts, virtual earth, photos within Spaces, search.

Ray then showed Photosynth, a new photo app that has an excellent zooming feature - which has also been added to Silverlight.

3) Silverlight Streaming

The third part of the story is streaming, which allows developers to post Silverlight apps to Microsoft's storage service in the cloud. This essentially enables things like video streaming, via the browser.

Overall, Ray referred to Silverlight as a "foundational technology" which is now a key part of Microsoft's web development platform.

More from MIX soon....

Photo from pxn8 (I was sitting next to him)

Update: Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 Beta and Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha is immediately available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight.

"Microsoft, meanwhile, said that during the Olympics, 40 million US to visitors NBCOlympics.com didn't yet have Silverlight installed."

NBC has already begun switching back to Adobe Flash for the start of the NFL season. Yet their efforts don't seem to be paying off at the moment with reports of video playback for the NFL season starter game being too horrible to watch.

Not a Good Look

We all know that at least 90% of computer users have Adobe Flash installed. It's easy to see why NBC would want to switch back. The partnership between Microsoft and NBC was likely more beneficial to Microsoft in the end. One of the downsides for NBC was that users tend to become either wary or lazy about downloading new extensions for a website. This is especially true if the website was working just fine with previous extensions only days before. However, with a rocky start to switching back, NBC online sports fans are probably wondering if it's even worth the effort anymore.

Microsoft added a number of interesting new features to Silverlight, including multi-touch support, improved text quality, support for a number of new video codecs (including H.264), better 3D effects, and automated search engine optimization. Users can now also take Silverlight applications and run them outside of the browser and even offline. Out-of-browser applications will run in a secure sandbox mode, which makes installing the apps very easy. These apps will also be able to auto-update.

NBC Universal also announced that it will use Silverlight to power its online coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, which will include 720p HD streaming (interestingly, NBC doesn't seem to use Silverlight outside of its coverage of the Olympics).

You can find download links for the Silverlight 3 runtime, SDK, and documentation here.

Expression Blend 3 Preview

Microsoft also showed a preview of Expression Blend 3, its development tool for Silverlight and WPF applications. Among other things, Blend now makes it easier to create prototypes and then immediately take these and turn them into working applications. Blend 3 also now integrates directly with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, which makes prototyping in the application even easier.

Azure

Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing initiative, also saw some important updates today. Developers can now host their data on two U.S.-based datacenters, giving them the ability to store their data in multiple locations, while also enhancing performance by reducing network latency. Developers will now also be able to run applications written in non-.NET languages on Azure, thanks to the addition of support for FastCGI. Because of this, developers will now be able to run PHP or Ruby applications on Azure, for example. According to Microsoft, the final version of the Azure platform is still on track for a launch by the end of 2009.

Also, as is usual when Microsoft launches a new media product these days, they have brought on board a number of high profile partners. In this case they include Akamai Technologies Inc., Brightcove Inc., Eyeblaster Inc., Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball and Netflix Inc.

What are we to make of the sudden increase in Microsoft vs Adobe competition? The world of RIAs is increasing in importance, as Internet users seek out better "experiences" - both in the browser and outside it, and both online and offline. While Google is happy to utilize Ajax in the browser as its RIA weapon of choice, Microsoft and Adobe are busy battling it out in the 'richer' products - which either extend the browser or utilize the desktop.

MySpace also announced that LG will preload the MySpace Mobile application on the next-generation of its Windows Mobile 6.1 phones.

The Future of MySpace is Mobile

MySpace, according to its own data, currently has about 20 million worldwide mobile users, and it offers mobile applications for all the major smart phone platforms, including the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, and Windows Mobile.

We know that MySpace, which has recently been overtaken by Facebook as the leading social networking site in the U.S., considers mobile social networking applications to be the next battleground, and this is definitely one of the reasons why the company is trying to get a foothold on all the major mobile platforms now. Whether this will be enough to hold back Facebook's current march towards dominating the social networking space remains to be seen, however.

When we went to TV.com and selected the March Madness link, it went to the CBS-hosted link mentioned above. It appears, at least in this case, that YouTube has perhaps a slightly tighter integration over CBS' own streaming video site offering. But there are a couple of perks that are also available no matter which path you choose. Going the YouTube route gives you quick access to CBSNCAATourney video clips. Choosing the CBS site offers a live Facebook status update stream similar to what CNN did during the presidential debates. So, either way, everybody wins.

Adobe, of course, isn't alone in trying to make a push for the living room. Microsoft is also trying to aim for the same market with its Silverlight platform. Although Silverlight has been used to power some high-profile events lately, including NBC's Olympics site, it is still only a minor player in the overall market.

Last August, Intel and Yahoo also announced an initiative to bring Yahoo widgets to TVs. Even though other vendors like Verizon already offer some widgets on their set-top boxes, these solutions are often too clunky to be really useful.

Similar to Silverlight, the new Adobe platform will not just focus on widgets, however. Adobe also plans to give content creators the ability to stream HD video directly to these devices.

Interestingly, Netflix, which currently uses Silverlight to power its browser-based players, is also among Adobe's launch partners.

Can Flash Succeed Where Others Have Failed?

Interactive TV has long held a lot of promise, but the idea never really caught on with consumers. Flash, however, may be able to change this. Adobe can rely on a dedicated group of third-party developers who will only have to make minor changes to their programs to make them run on these Flash-enabled devices.

Hopefully, Adobe will create an App Store-like experience that will allow developers to promote their apps and allow consumers the ability to pick and choose widgets for their TVs.

Windows Mobile is the second most popular mobile operating system worldwide. Flash, meanwhile, is arguably the most popular rich media platform on the web reaching almost 99% of Internet users, according to Adobe.

For Microsoft, even though they're still banking on Silverlight, licensing Flash Lite now is a smart move. It gives their mobile OS a tangible advantage over the surging iPhone, and as as Larry Dignan points out, it gives them an opportunity to learn how to roll out a rich media platform on the mobile. Flash Lite now means access to a ton of already made rich media content, video, and applications that users of some rival platforms don't have access to.

Even though Silverlight has signed some high profile partnerships to deliver web video, including with Major League Baseball and NBC for the Beijing Olympics, it is still largely not used by developers. Further, a mobile version of Silverlight won't ship for a few months. If Microsoft can expand the reach of Silverlight on the web via more partnerships like the ones it has been signing, then it can worry about pushing Silverlight to mobile platforms. We agree with Dignan at ZDNet: in a couple of years, this partnership will probably be irrelevant, but in the short term, it's a great move for both companies.