In a recent conversation about investing in Macs vs. PCs Microsoft Silverlight was raised. What is it? Silverlight appears to be an "applet" that allows .Net developers to release websites for heterogeneous environments from Safari, Firefox to IE and even for cell phone based browsing. Oddly, this product was raised by the Microsoft "side" as a way to prevent purchasing Macs. The argument is lost on us.
We can't help but imagine that with the changing of the guard at Microsoft that Microsoft itself is in need of deep change. Ray Ozzie has the technical reigns and perhaps he'll be the savior.
Remember, Ray Ozzie comes with a very long tradition of cross platform products. Lotus Notes is perhaps the most famous. That platform (server included) ran on many different platforms through its life. Perhaps Silverlight is a new, more open direction for Microsoft.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer market share continues to drop. Ozzie and crew have to be thinking about embracing a new, bold world where internet standards lead product and website development. Oddly, Silverlight allows Microsoft to further control it's application environment, but that could be a good thing.
One of Apple's key advantages is it's ability to control the entire user experience from hardware through the operating system and even into applications. Silverlight can give .Net developers a potential edge similar to that. Then again, Java was supposed to do the same thing.
Silverlight clearly indicates a change in thinking in Redmond. As little as a year ago, as far as they were concerned, there was only one web browser. This is the feeling no longer.
We've downloaded the beta and it installed and ran in Safari 3.x on Leopard without problem. Other than the Office suite, that's the first MS product to do that since Virtual PC was on the market a number of years ago.
In a recent conversation about investing in Macs vs. PCs Microsoft Silverlight was raised. What is it? 
