It appears that Microsoft is attempting to get back its hold on the computer world. As more people are drawn by the streamlined Apple products and the new web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, the battle for supremacy is entering cyberspace.

Microsoft has added Silverlight technology to its surging repository of software, which may well tip the scales in its favor. You might now ask what Silverlight technology really is – it is definitely more than just a catchy label.

Silverlight is a, fully programmable plug-in for a web browser which will let you listen to music played over the internet. Using this plug-in, the internet user is able to hear audio, watch video and animations that are so richly available in internet applications. At the basic level it is almost like Adobe Flash Player but while there are similarities, they are not alike.

Codenamed Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere(WPF/E),Silverlight was developed as an application that permits users to combine the audio, video and interaction capabilities into one run-time environment in pretty much the style that Windows Presentation Foundation uses.

While working in co-ordination with XAML, the substance of the Silverlight application can be indexed by the search engines.Silverlight supports the common arrangement of WMV, WMA and MP3 extensions but does not need the Windows Media Player or even an Active X control or WMP plug-in to decode these formats. Thus Silverlight becomes a one stop service for multimedia on cyberspace and there is no necessity to download various plug-ins for one application. Silverlight works well with Windows Vista Home and Professional Editions as well and also with Windows Mobile 6. The plugin also works seamlessly with the Mac OS.

All this technical data will be understood by computer techies, but what does Silverlight offer for the lay user? A normal user does not really bother about whether Flash or Silverlight is used to keep the web content running.

Silverlight displays its content on screen by using XAML which is a text based language. This makes Silverlight content search-able on the internet. Again this will mean little to the ordinary user, but has tremendous implications for the big search engines like Google and Yahoo. While these search engines cannot read sites built on Flash, they will readily index Silverlight sites and show them up in their search results.

People who use the less popular browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome will like Silverlight as this plug-in will link them to almost all other internet applications working on other platforms. Microsoft generally steers clear of Mac and other operating systems buy Silverlight has already received good reviews from many web developers. This could open up new vistas for Silverlight technology.

These possibilities are already being explored by Microsoft in their many applications.Math.com has incorporated a new feature that lets chat users converse without using a client network as intermediary. Netflix and CBS .com have introduced video players that allow several users to synchronize their videos to get a community feeling of watching a movie at the same time.

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Category: Computers and Technology
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