Microsoft Silverlight coming to mobile devices this year

Microsoft's Silverlight browser plug-in will be bringing videos and other rich media to Nokia smartphones later this year.

The two companies on Tuesday at Microsoft's Mix '08 conference are scheduled to announce that Microsoft will write a version of Silverlight for Nokia's Series 60 (S60) smartphone software that runs on Symbian OS. The software, which will be available later this year, will also run on Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets.

Silverlight videos are coming to Nokia's N96 smartphone.

(Credit: Nokia)

For people with compatible devices, it means they will be able to see content, notably video, written for Silverlight, which Microsoft is pushing as an alternative to Adobe's Flash Player. Microsoft has been signing on content partners to use Silverlight for media streaming, including MLB.com and online Olympic games broadcasting with NBC.

For Microsoft, the deal with Nokia is a step in its pledge to make Silverlight "ubiquitous," that is, capable of running on multiple operating systems.

The software giant is trying to lure Web developers toward Silverlight--and away from Flash--to build rich Internet applications or media-oriented Web sites.

The strategy, which Microsoft detailed at last year's Mix conference, hinges on creating tools that let traditional Microsoft developers write Silverlight Web applications with familiar products like Visual Studio and ASP.Net.

Silverlight now runs on Windows and Mac OS, and it has a deal with Novell to build a distribution on Linux.

A version of Silverlight for Windows Mobile will be available later this year, said John Case, a general manager in Microsoft's developer division. "The whole Silverlight strategy is to provide one programming model and ubiquity," he said.

Microsoft chose to work with Nokia because it has the largest market share of mobile phones, but it will sign on with other handset makers to create ports of Silverlight, Case said.

All the main features of Silverlight, including video and interactive Web application development, will be included in all mobile versions.

But there will be some device-specific restraints, which means Microsoft will create editions of Silverlight for different mobile platforms, he said.

[aka_tripleB]

While I know most of you won't like this

But I hope this overtakes Flash. I'm tired of Adobe's selective support for flash and think this is going to bring video play-back to new platforms. Right now, Flash doesn't support WM2003SE and presumably older PDAs and Adobe refuses to make a version that run in a 64-bit browser. Adobe needs competition in embedded video, and right now I'm really hoping Microsoft kicks Adobe's butt with Silverlight.

[DrtyDogg]

They need better adoption

right now several of Microsoft's own websites don't even use silverlight.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Flash sux...Adobe needs competition

Poor quality that wont scale up well (looks blocky) I`m sure Silverlight will look better from the samples I have seen.

[Stating]

Yes And No

I am sick of shelling out $500 for a mobile device only to have it become obsolete and unsupported 2 years later. My Dell Axim runs WM 2003 and Internet Explorer version 4. Quite a few web sites crash the browser, there is no Java support, etc. I have little faith that Microsoft's answer to Flash will cure this problem. The answer from software vendors always seems to be "Buy new hardware."

[Dan Owen]

Silverlight and Grava

Silverlight is a component of the Grava suite of tools which Microsoft wants to compete with Adobe CS3.

Unless MS gives the tools away to buy into the market, it is too little, too late.

Would it be nice to have competition across the spectrum of tools Adobe offers? Absolutely. Can Microsoft expect to sell tools for a profit when the only SW they have on the market are tools as cheesy as Office? No way.

Dan

[sal-magnone]

ADOBE

Adobe (Macromedia actually) could have locked up this market a long time ago. They blew it. They didn't come out with developer friendly tools and focused on media instead.

You wait around long enough, you get overtaken. Silverlight is hot from a development standpoint and hopefully, soon everywhere.

[krosavcheg]

all very true

all very true. I hope this spurs adobe to finally re-write the CS apps from the ground up. and I hope MS supports PalmOS w/ a silverlight plugin.

Except for a very limited partnership for a handful of Sony Clie's "way back in the day" . . Adobe has chosen to completely ignored Palm, which kind of screws my "browser experience" on one.