"While we have emphasized the role of HTML5 as the foundation of the recently released Internet Explorer 9 and have shown an unprecedented commitment to being leaders in HTML5 browsers," Walid Abu-Hadba, Scott Gutherie and S. Somasegar--all of them Microsoft corporate or senior vice presidents involved in the company's developer efforts--wrote in an April 4 posting on the Silverlight Team Blog, "we have probably not emphasized enough the tooling for HTML5."
The posting also insists that Microsoft will continue to support the Silverlight platform as a supposedly ideal cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in for the Web's rich content. Indeed, the company plans on delivering a beta of Silverlight 5 at MIX11. Silverlight originally made its debut in 2007 as a competitor to Adobe Flash, and indeed found its calling as the underpinning of many prominent Web applications such as the Netflix movie viewer. In addition, Microsoft decided that Silverlight tools would become a vital part of its Windows Phone 7 developer ecosystem.
While that might have led to the expectation on the part of some third-party developers that Silverlight would eventually become a much broader cross-platform tool, Microsoft soon put the brakes on some of its Silverlight evangelism, leading to a fair bit of consternation on the part of some developers. The April 4 posting seeks to solidify the company's position on Silverlight (and plug-ins in general) a little more.
"Neither plug-ins nor standards-based approaches ... represent the single answer to client development," the executives wrote. "In general, we know developers always want the best of everything, in a single tool, but at the same time recognize that is not a practical way to approach development."
And given HTML5's evolving role and capabilities in both mobile and desktop browsers, thanks at least in part to its ability to mirror the functionality of plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight, it's become more of a factor in Microsoft's overall developer strategy.
"Over the coming months we'll be particularly demonstrative of our emphasis on HTML5, in Internet Explorer and in tools," the executives added. "HTML5 is a solution for many scenarios, but developers should make the appropriate choice based on application needs, knowing that we have a heritage and a future vision of supporting a wide variety of technologies to meet those needs."
Nonetheless, it seems that lingering developer fears over Silverlight fading away - after some developers have invested time and resources in the platform - can be put on hold for the moment, with news of the Silverlight 5 beta (not to mention, Microsoft continuing to use it as a platform for Windows Phone).
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