"While Microsoft first time previewed Silverlight for Windows Mobile back in May 2007, it's neither yet available nor has Microsoft unveiled any details when it will become available. It was only confirmed by Microsoft that Silverlight for Mobile will be initially launched for Windows Mobile and S60 smartphones."
Arne Hess reports, via a twitter feed source, that Silverlight should be included in Windows Mobile 6.5. I know this will make developers who got on the Silverlight bandwagon especially happy, as they've been eager to get their Silverlight apps onto the mobile platform. Now lets just hope that the unconfirmed twitter rumors are true, and our next major version should ship with Silverlight.
__________________ Jon Westfall
Contributing Editor, MS MVP, MCSE, Ph.D., and More.
Please, someone help me out here. Why should I want SilverLight? To me, it's just another install to run any time I'm setting up a machine.
I didn't watch much of it this year, but the NCAA Basketball streaming was Silverlight this year and the quality was fanstastic. Also, Netflix streaming is Silverlight, and NBC was streaming Olympic coverage from Beijing using Silverlight last year.
Competition is always good. If it takes Silverlight to force Adobe to improve Flash, that's a good reason for you to want it, I'd think.
I'm still avoiding SilverLight. Flash works great for me. So far I've found about 2 sites that use SilverLight and one was Microsoft.
I agree that Silverlight sites are far and few in-between, but if Microsoft puts Silverlight in every Windows Mobile phone out there from 6.5 and beyond, and developers start to create apps for it, well, why should you care?
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I also did a little reading and saw that SilverLight allows apps to run outside of a browser and offline. This would be a plus for WinMo since there isn't a good browser standard on Windows Mobile phones.
I guess I'd vote for those resources at Microsoft to go towards a good browser first but it sounds like SilverLight is being used more than I thought. As you said Jason, if they do start developing WinMo apps that use SilverLight, I'll want it!
Maybe someone can write a good browser in SilverLight for WinMo
Honestly, as an end user, there's really not much difference between Flex/Flash and Silverlight, so I can understand your hesitancy.
From a developer's point of view, I think Silverlight offers some very compelling features. It uses .NET, which means that's one less thing you have to learn and that much more knowledge that you can leverage. This also means any .NET language can be used: C#, F#, Visual Basic, Visual C++, or even IronPython or IronRuby. It is reported to be a superior solution for video streaming, which is why the few big applications the public has seen it in have focused on that.
Silverlight Should Be In Windows Mobile 6.5
I hope someone at Adobe is reading this.
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