Microsoft touts coming Silverlight features and platform support
While Silverlight didn't get the leading role in either the day one or day two Mix '11 keynotes (much to the chagrin of some developers), there was some Silverlight news at the Microsoft developer/designer conference.
Context & Ripple Effects
Mix '11 lands six months after Microsoft's own admission that its strategy with Silverlight has shifted toward HTML5 — a repositioning that left the plugin's role deliberately vague, and which the September 2010 "Future of Silverlight" post only partly clarified. Days before the conference, WinRumors reported Microsoft might announce Silverlight for Xbox, setting up expectations the keynotes then declined to meet.
First-order effects
- Developers who built on Silverlight get a mixed signal: new features and expanded platform support are promised, but the platform was absent from both Mix '11 day one and day two keynotes — the slots where Microsoft instead previewed the next Windows Phone OS, code-named Mango.
- Commentary already criticizes Microsoft for a wavering commitment to HTML5 alongside an uncertain Silverlight roadmap, so the sideline treatment sharpens questions about where Microsoft wants its own developers investing.
Second-order effects
- With the browser story de-emphasized, Silverlight's practical center of gravity shifts toward Microsoft's controlled platforms — Windows Phone chief among them — meaning tooling and talent follow the phone roadmap rather than the open web.
- Competing rich-web approaches, HTML5 foremost, gain an argument against a proprietary plugin whose owner will not give it keynote billing, pressuring agencies and ISVs to hedge their client work toward standards-based stacks.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — flagship features announced off-keynote while the strategic spotlight moves to HTML5 and Windows Phone — the rich-internet-plugin era gives way to a structure where Microsoft's developer platforms are defined by its devices and services rather than by browser runtime adoption.
The trend: Proprietary browser plugins like Silverlight are being wound down as strategic assets as platform owners such as Microsoft pivot developer attention to HTML5 and their own device ecosystems.