14 DAY TRIAL // In mid-October Microsoft made available for download the RTW (release to web) Build of Silverlight 2, and now the company is already looking forward to the next iteration of its Adobe Flash killer. Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform, revealed that Silverlight 3 was planned for availability in 2009, promising a plethora of additional features.
At the same time, Microsoft is offering developers the chance to have a say in the development process for the successor of Silverlight 2. Via the Silverlight Feedback Survey, developers can give Microsoft their two cents on Silverlight.
“We’ve put together a short survey to help us improve our Silverlight features and API. Spend 15 minutes and tell us what is good and bad about Silverlight so far,” explained Brian Goldfarb, Microsoft lead product manager.
The last item of the survey deals with Silverlight 3. The Redmond company is asking developers to nominate key features that could be added in the next version Silverlight, or to point to existing features that need improving.
“Thank you for agreeing to help out with feedback on Microsoft Silverlight 2. Your feedback will be invaluable in helping us improve our products and tools. The survey should take you less than 15 minutes, and its important to provide as much detail as you can. All feedback is anonymous,” promised Pete Faraday, product manager, developer Tools Division.
The survey allows participants to rate Silverlight 2 in accordance with a range of aspects, from graphics and animation, to media, control skinning, layout, tools, and even deployment. Delivering a taste of Silverlight 3, Guthrie informed that H.264 video support would be included, but also additional media enhancements, on top of 3D support, GPU hardware acceleration, more controls and richer data-binding support.
Silverlight 2 RTW (2.0.31005.0) is available for download here.