Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Microsoft Silverlight to run on Moblin devices

news
Sep 23, 20092 mins

Intel reveals plans Wednesday to support the rich Internet technology on the open source OS next year

Microsoft’s Silverlight rich media plug-in technology for Internet applications will extend to the Intel-driven Moblin device platform early next year, Intel said on Wednesday.

Version 3 of Silverlight will be supported, according to Microsoft. Through Silverlight’s cross-platform foundation, developers can write applications once and have them run on both Windows and Moblin devices, Intel said. Moblin is a Linux-based open source operating system project intended for systems ranging from netbooks and handhelds to smartphones and in-car computers. It is primarily focused on the Intel Atom processor.

[ Also on InfoWorld: “Microsoft gives sneak peek at Silverlight 4.” ]

Silverlight 3 shipped in July, featuring offline and 3-D capabilities as well as advanced streaming. Silverlight is a rival to the ubiquitous Adobe Flash platform. Moblin has not supported previous versions of Silverlight.

Microsoft lauded Intel’s plans in its Silverlight blog on Wednesday.

“This collaboration is focused on enabling consumers to have a great out-of-the box experience for browsing the Web and we see Silverlight support as a key aspect of that,” Microsoft said.

“We are excited by further support of Silverlight by key industry leaders and how this collaboration delivers on Silverlight’s cross-platform, cross-browser, and cross-device promise by going beyond just the PC to allow developers to reach more endpoints for their applications and services,” Microsoft said. “We see this is a clear extension of our current efforts with Novell where we are building an open source implementation of Silverlight called ‘Moonlight’ that is targeted at the broad range of Linux-based PCs.”

Intel announced the Moblin-Silverlight effort at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, where the company also unveiled its Intel Atom Developer Program, intended to encourage ISVs and developers to build applications for Atom devices. Silverlight will be supported within the program, Microsoft said.

“Developers can target Silverlight as a preferred client runtime and know they will get solid support on Atom-based devices,” said Microsoft in its blog. Intel also showed Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Services) Smooth Streaming on Atom-devices running both Windows 7 and Moblin, Microsoft said.

Intel has transferred jurisdiction over Moblin to the Linux Foundation.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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