Macsimum News - NAB: Microsoft’s Flash Player competitor will work with Macs, Safari

NAB: Microsoft’s Flash Player competitor will work with Macs, Safari

Posted by Dennis Sellers Apple ico Apr 16, 2007 at 9:47am

Today at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft launched Silverlight, a web browser plug-in for playing media files and displaying interactive Web applications. Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Systems’ Flash Player has an official name, Silverlight, and is aimed at media and entertainment companies bringing video to the web, reports CNET.

Silverlight can display web applications on both Windows and the Mac in Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. The company intends to release a beta of the web browser plug-in, formerly called Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E), at the Mix07 conference for designers and Web developers in Las Vegas later this month.

Along with the public launch of Silverlight, Microsoft announced a number of media and advertising agency partners that have shown interest in using the software. Partners include Major League Baseball, online video broadcaster Brightcove, Netflix and Akamai Technologies, notes CNET. Also at NAB, Microsoft introduced a digital content management tool called Interactive Media Manager. The company says the software works with its existing SharePoint Server product and is targeted at companies in media, entertainment, advertising and marketing. No price was announced.

J. Scott Anderson Says:

Another shot that has to to impact the executive thinking at Adobe - if they are smart. Should not announcements like this drive them (Adobe) and their strategy back to the Mac and/or Linux? We’ll see…

Posted on April 16, 2007

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Dennis Sellers

Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.