The release candidate (RC) of the long awaited Microsoft Silverlight multimedia authoring, encoding and user platform, a direct competitor to the Adobe Flash environment, has been released.

Silverlight’s cross-browser, cross-platform approach targets content providers who distribute video and rich media over the Internet; developers and designers who build rich interactive applications; and end users who seek a better quality experience in viewing Web-based media.

The Major League Baseball playoffs will use Silverlight as their new online video platform. Microsoft also has Silverlight partners in Akamai Technologies, Brightcove, Eyeblaster, and Netflix.

Whether Silverlight will make as small a dent in Adobe’s dominance in the field as Microsoft’s XPS did to PDF remains to be seen.

[Via PC Magazine]

Have Something To Say?