Microsoft brings streaming and .Net to Silverlight

LAS VEGAS--Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, on Monday introduced a video-streaming service and announced .Net development tool support for Silverlight, its cross-platform Web browser plug-in.

Ozzie was the keynote speaker at Mix '07, Microsoft's conference aimed at Web developers and designers, where he laid out Microsoft's strategy for providing tools for a range of applications, including pure Web browser-based applications as well as those that combine on-premise software with online services.

On Monday, Microsoft launched a service called Silverlight Streaming, a Microsoft-hosted service that lets people embed streaming media into a Web page. Storage for video feeds and photos is free "with reasonable limitations," Ozzie said.

Silverlight is Microsoft's alternative to Adobe's Flash Player, which has become a de facto standard for video on the Web.

In addition, Ozzie announced that Microsoft will make Silverlight a "full-fledged member of the .Net family." That will allow .Net programmers to write Silverlight applications. Until now, Silverlight, which is now in beta, has been able to run applications written in Microsoft's XAML and JavaScript.

With .Net support, people trained in Microsoft .Net languages, such as C# or Visual Basic, can write applications that run on Web browser, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari on the Mac. To do that, Microsoft will provide a cross-platform version of the .Net framework, said Scott Guthrie, general manager of Microsoft's servers and tools division.

Microsoft also announced on Monday the availability of a Web designer tools called Expression Studio.

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