As most will know by now, Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web, an Adobe Flash competitor. Mary Jo Foley discovered a Microsoft blogger published the Silverlight 2.0 timetable.
Microsoft blogger Ashish Thapliyal blogged on April 3 that Microsoft is targetting “late summer” for the final release of Silverlight 2.0. Here’s the rest of the “rough” timeline, according to Thapliyal:
- Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 (Q1CY08 with limited (non commercial) Go-Live) — this was released at Mix ‘08 in early March
- Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 (Q2CY08 with Go-Live)
- Silverlight 2.0 RTM (Summer 2008) – Exact timing TBD
- Silverlight v.next – We are working on a v.Next plan and have nothing to announce at this time
- Silverlight for mobile – No date available
(Microsoft has said it will release Silverlight 1.0 on Windows Mobile 6.0 phones in the second quarter of this year, but hasn’t released any timing information on its Silverlight 2.0 for Mobile.....)
(Thanks to Ars Technica for the pointer to Thapliyal’s blog post.)
Some other interesting facts can be found in the Silverlight Roadmap question post. Currently Silverlight supports playing VC-1, WMV, MP3 and WMA content, there are no plans to expand that list, if you want to use another format you will have to convert that with Microsoft Expression Encoder. Websites designed with Silverlight 1.0 will be compatible when 2.0 comes out and there won't be drastic changes between Beta 2 and the final.
I'm looking forward to seeing more Silverlight usage around the net, and not just sites like the new Microsoft Videos Beta and Tafiti Search Visualization, which we spoke about before. I'm also looking forward to some ready developed applications for webmasters to use on their sites, think about stuff like audio/video players, games, photo galleries. We have already gotten a lil taste of what's possible with Silverlight 2 and DeepZoom with Windows Live PhotoZoom and it tastes like more!
More links of interest:
Silverlight Home
Silverlight News
Silverlight FAQ
Silverlight Resources
Silverlight Showcase
The unofficial Silverlight Streaming showcase gallery
Previous LiveSide articles about Silverlight
LiveSide articles on Silverlight Streaming