Although Microsoft's Silverlight was originally conceived as a competitor to
Adobe Flash, it now finds itself competing with Abobe's Web 2.0 platform,
Adobe Air. The harsh truth is, Microsoft Silverlight has already fallen
considerably behind Adobe Air and typical for a Microsoft product on Mac,
it's prone to bugs. In typically Microsoft style, the software giant has
surely missed the boat by aiming at a replacement for Adobe Flash when the
web world was already shifting towards interactive Web 2.0 platforms such as
Adobe Air. Microsoft Silverlight is a lightweight plug-in that allows you to
watch Silverlight-based content in your browser. It works with most major
browsers, including Firefox and Safari. There is no prompt to restart the
browser after installation but I recommend you do so because the first site
of Silverlight content I accessed after installation simply crashed the
browser. The most important improvements to the latest version of Microsoft
Silverlight are smoother streaming, DRM management, and an out-of browser
player. The out-of browser player however is dependent on developers
embracing it and as yet, there are few examples available. The smooth
streaming feature will iron out many of the streaming problems that have
plagued Silverlight in the past. If your bandwidth drops below 3Mbps, smooth
streaming will kick-in so that your video isn't affected. Microsoft
Silverlight can stream high-resolution video well and supports HD-quality
videos. If you want to create content for Silverlight, you'll need Expression
Studio and Visual Studio. In fact, this latest release is is of particular
interest to developers because it adds 60 customizable controls, new layout
containers, 'deep linking' for page bookmarking, search engine optimization,
and enhanced data support. The signs are, however, that Microsoft has already
realized that the battle for web content is being won by the much slicker and
more stable Adobe Air platform, and is therefore aiming Silverlight at
business users. The Silverlight homepage boasts: 'Learn how Silverlight is
right for your business'. It points out that companies such as Continental
Airlines have adopted Microsoft Silverlight for use in their reservation
system showing that Microsoft knows which side its bread is buttered on.
*Microsoft Silverlight has probably missed the boat as far as Web 2.0 goes,
although there's probably no way Mac users can avoid it since there will
always be some websites that opt to stream content with Silverlight rather
than Flash.*Download *Microsoft Silverlight 5.1.10411.0* in Softonic
