According to MacWorld, Microsoft showed what they are calling Silverlight at NAB, a new Mac and PC-compatible Web browser plug-in that provides interactive Web capabilities similar to how Adobe Flash works. Microsoft will provide a beta of Silverlight later this month with plans for its general release to follow.

Formerly code-named WPF/E, Silverlight is targeted at content providers who want to distribute video and rich media on the Web and designers and developers working with interactive applications. The plugin works on the Mac using either Mozilla Firefox or Apple’s own Safari Web browser. On Windows, it also supports Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7. While Silverlight is cross-platform in terms of web browser support, the development tools are Windows-only (surprise, surprise). — has been positioned as an alternative to Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 software.

On the server side, Silverlight applications will work fine with Linux-based web servers, but Microsoft is encouraging people to use Windows-based servers by bundling extra tools to make the process easier. Windows Server “Longhorn”—the server version of Vista expected to ship later this year—will come with Streaming Media Services for deploying VC-1 video for Silverlight clients.

With Flash also moving forward under Adobe ownership and being a totally cross platform solution that is entrenched with content designers for many years. Microsoft will probably find this an uphill battle, but they are a patient bunch.

Update – Response from Adobe:
“Microsoft, historically, has never demonstrated a commitment to maintaining a cross platform solution,” Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe, said in an interview Tuesday in Tokyo. He cited Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer as examples of Microsoft products that are still being developed for Windows but have been ended for the Mac platform.

“Even though they say Silverlight is going to be cross-platform, and maybe the first [version] will be, I’m not sure our customers or the people that are trying to deliver that content will have the degree of confidence that if they go with Microsoft, they’ll be able to provide them with a complete cross-platform solution forever,” he said.

“Microsoft is a $50 billion monopolist who’s in the software business. I take them very seriously,” he said.

Note: As I pointed out above the creation tools are already Windows ONLY!

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