IDF: Microsoft Silverlight to work on Intel linux netbooks

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

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.