Microsoft announced today that its new browser client platform, named Silverlight, will be available for download tomorrow, Oct 14th at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/.

 

Silverlight is a kind of “.NET Light” that runs under many Internet browser (IE, Firefox, Safari) and operating systems (Windows, MacOS and Linux). It is very attractive to Microsoft shops because it uses the same languages, class library and development environment as the “full .NET”.

 

Silverlight is a direct competitor to Adobe Flash. Compared with Flash, Silverlight has a much more robust and feature rich development environment. The one thing that Silverlight lacks when compared to Flash is 3-D graphics, but that can be included by the applications themselves. Also, Microsoft can extend Silverlight at will in the future and include support to different APIs, I believe it’s just a question of getting customer feedback.

 

I hope .NET finally delivers the promise of “Smart Client” applications made by Bill Gates during PDC 2001 but never quite delivered by .NET 1.X or even ClickOnce. Smart Client applications are meant to deliver the ease of deployment of browser applications with the rich user experience of Windows apps.

Compared with ClickOnce, Silverlight has some clear advantages:

 

It’s not as powerful as the full blown .NET Framework but I expect it to have the right balance of power and simplicity. Given that it was developed under the leadership of Scott Guthrie, of ASP.NET fame, I have a very good feeling.