14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is planting the seeds for the next generation of web development and design at MIX 2007, in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. And both Silverlight 1.0 Beta and Silverlight 1.1 Alpha are an integer part of the Redmond Company's vision for the evolution of development and design for the web. Delivering the debut keynote address at MIX07, Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Scott Guthrie, general manager of the Developer Division unveiled both the vision and the roadmap for Silverlight and the connection with the Microsoft .NET platform and tools.
"Silverlight is an important aspect of our software-plus-services strategy focused on delivering great user experiences that span the Web, the PC and mobile devices," said Ozzie. "It does so, in part, by bridging technical barriers that previously made it difficult for Web developers and designers to collaborate. As a result, Silverlight will play an important role in helping advance the Web with a platform for creating rich, interactive experiences."
As Internet Explorer 7 was the indisputable start of MIX06, Silverlight has taken the center stage at this year's conference. According to Microsoft, the cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in designed to bring to the web the evolution of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications, and to take Flash out of the equation, is at the core of the company's web strategy.
"Silverlight enables designers and developers to utilize existing skills, assets, tools and infrastructure to build applications in the emerging media experiences and RIA category of applications. The combination of Microsoft Silverlight and the other new platform and tooling enhancements we are announcing today - such as dynamic languages support, enhanced functionality for ASP.NET AJAX and Microsoft Silverlight Streaming - are great news for developers and designers in terms of ensuring productivity and collaboration. They also make the .NET Framework unequaled for building and delivering applications for the Web, Windows, Macintosh and devices," revealed Forest Key, director of product management at Microsoft.
Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 beta is designed to support online media experiences and rich interactive applications built via Visual Studio and Expression Studio tools, on a foundation of Apache and PHP, as well as JavaScript and XHTML. Currently, Microsoft plans to make the final version of Silverlight available in the summer of 2007.
Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha is intimately connected to the .NET Framework, and comes with support for ASP.NET AJAX and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) language, JavaScript, Visual Basic?, C#, Python and Ruby.