At NAB, Microsoft’s First Showing Of ‘Silverlight’

Having had dominated Web video for…a long time, Adobe’s Flash is justifiably the standard when it comes to displaying clips of films, television shows, podcasts, etc. The company has built a vast client base around the platform, and thus regularly attains great amounts of feedback and suggestions, which it internalizes to help enhance the product. The fact that Adobe chooses to focus heavily on the product also enables it the option of doling out updates with relative frequency, which gives content creators the option to deliver richer media, sooner. And so the cycle continues. It’s no surprise that few bother to compete with it.

There are companies looking to pull people away from Adobe, however. A recent entry is Microsoft. The Redmond-based giant plans to join the race with a small software package developed for the end user, dubbed ‘Silverlight’.

A beta of Silverlight was announced at the NAB Show (National Association of Broadcasters). It is a plug-in that allows the playback of media files and the use of “interactive Web applications.” No news there. That’s what Flash has been doing for quite a while. So what does Silverlight offer that Adobe has so far failed to provide with its product?

Nothing much, unless one is very interested in delivering Windows Media in “a really seamless way” without prejudice against software platforms (Windows, Mac OS X).

The Windows Media format has been used by many, many content providers to offer video to Web-based viewers. Movies rentals formatted in WMV have been pumped to computer monitors for years. But it has frequently drawn the ire of users unfortunately operating non-Windows PCs. Granted, the number of individuals which fall into that group is small compared to the count of total media consumers on the Web, but they have made enough noise to make Microsoft notice. And to deliver a cross-platform solution will only make the company’s solutions more attractive, considering it is consistently seen as locking out “others”.

It has remained more or less immune to repercussions because of the monopolistic weight it wields.

As media becomes more Web-centric, and the online world becomes a little “flatter,” Microsoft is sensing that it’s being required to change over to a more accepting, more forward-looking position. Thus, Silverlight is born.

Will Silverlight make the waves Microsoft hopes it to, despite Flash’s obvious past and continuing successes? If the company (Microsoft) maintains the online media delivery partnerships it has struck with entities like Major League Baseball, Brightcove, Netflix (a Windows Media partner before the announcement of Silverlight), and Akamai Technologies, it will do reasonably well. And if users remain content with Silverlight – with regular fixes and features added to stay near or even at the head of the pack, Microsoft likely will get good marks – Adobe may even see its turf stolen.

Of course, Adobe won’t want to see such a turn of events, so it’ll compete vigorously to keep its safe lead.

A fight for a bigger slice of the tech pie has never turned out badly for the consumer, and a heated battle for superiority only makes for better products for the users. So there’s really nothing more to say except: Let the game begin.