For a new Windows Azure-based service

Oct 19, 2009 12:49 GMT  ·  By

The Microsoft Silverlight Streaming service will never make it to its third anniversary. The Redmond company is working on discontinuing Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live Beta and has announced that it will eventually shut down the service entirely. No specific deadline for the death of Silverlight Streaming was offered at this point in time, as the software giant provided more of a heads up to all customers that had leveraged the offering for the past couple of years. At the same time, the Redmond company announced that it was working on a new service, designed to replace much of the functionality of Silverlight Streaming, but which will be built around Windows Azure, and will not be free as was the case of its pseudo-precursor.

“A new Windows Azure-based hosting and delivery service will be launched by the end of 2009, though this is not a direct replacement for Silverlight Streaming and will have costs associated with its use,” Microsoft stated. “Key dates and information about the availability of the new Windows Azure functionality, and when the existing Silverlight Streaming beta service will be taken down, will be communicated in the coming weeks.”

Microsoft is advising customers that are currently hosting content on Silverlight Streaming to retrieve it, or even remove it, as access will not be shut down. For the time being, all materials are safe, the company underlined, and will continue to be accessible to customers, at least for a period of time.

“Effective immediately, no new sign-ups are permitted for the Silverlight Streaming service. In addition, the Silverlight Streaming publishing plug-in for Expression Encoder will no longer be available for download,” the company stated. “The new Windows Azure functionality will not be a direct replacement for the Silverlight Streaming service and will be a paid subscription service.”

Microsoft debuted Silverlight Streaming back in May 2007, offering users a service designed to host not only videos but also applications built with the company’s alternative to Adobe Flash. The service was in beta development stage throughout its lifetime and will not get to version 1.0. Microsoft noted that by killing Silverlight Streaming it is resolving a redundancy issue, which it is also introducing with the launch of the new Windows Azure-based service.

“You can directly access the file system of the Silverlight Streaming hosting service. This will be the easiest way to retrieve content directly to your computer. In order to do this, you need to know the Silverlight Streaming Account ID and Account Key used to access the file system. To get this information, do the following: Open a web browser and connect to http://silverlight.live.com. Login with your Live ID. Click on Manage Account. You will see your Account ID and Key under the Account Information section at the bottom of the page,” the company explained, and offered additional information on how to retrieve content hosted on Silverlight Streaming.