The Business of Silverlight

Silverlight and the Olympics live

2009-11-04T06:06:00.000-08:00

Building off the great progress of Sunday Night Football, NBC has made some modifications to thier NBCSports.com site to include the Silverlight player as the default experience for playing Olympic coverage. This player utilizes our IIS Smooth Streaming and provides for HD experience, DVR functionality, and the ability to do instant replay in case you want to replay some outstanding event during the live games. Check out some of the new clips @ NBCSports.com!

We also announced some great live events with major music artists as part of a partnership with OurWorld Live (OWL), Billboardlive.com and IStreamPlanet to bring forward some major live concerts for free allowing users to be thier own producer and utilize multicamera angles, and chat with thier friends using Twitter. Check out the replay of the R Kelly show! There will be many more to come, please check out the Billboard live site for more info..

Enjoy the show, er shows! :)

C

Silverlight and Sunday Night Football Extra

2009-08-20T15:20:00.001-07:00

Today NBC Universal and the NFL announced their relationship to deliver Sunday Night Football online using Silverlight! They will offer 17 games, online and simulcast with the game including 5 camera feeds so you can chose which ones you want to watch, Slow motion, instant replay, and chat integration. Not to mention you will have live events in the timeline where you can jump right to the action, even if you missed it! It's going to be a great year and looking forward to watching Sunday Night Football on NBC Sunday Night Football Extra.

For those who want implementation details stay tuned and check our team site, what I can say is we are working close with partners like Vertigo to build the experience, IStreamplanet to encode and deliver, Inlet Encoders, and logging/health vendors like Conviva and Omniture. These partners are working hard to deliver a great experience. The season starts Sept 10th @ 8pm hope to see you online.

Silverlight 3 Announced

2009-07-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today in San Francisco we announced availability of Silverlight 3 and Expression 3. This is a major milestone as we move forward delivering on our advancement of development and design for the web and push the boundries and innovate on key area's of work flow, delivery and experience. Key features such as Sketchflow, Smooth Streaming (live) and Out of Browser push the bar for RIA's and experiences within them. Being able to leverage our 6M developer community is critical to the success of our business and partners have stepped up to deliver very compelling experiences, while solving some very challenging problems for our customers.

We also announced some very important customer use cases with NBC Sports announcing support for Silverlight as the preferred platform for HD delivery moving forward. NBCSports has been a leader in helping to bring about successful applications online with the Olympics, and we are excited to partner with them on many other brands like the AVP, Wimbledon and the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. This partnership will yield great results for consumers as we move forward delivering never before used features online like PVR, Slow Motion, and Instant Reply. We are looking forward to working close with NBC Sports on new and ground breaking applications online.

We also demonstrated the power of Silverlight in the enterprise with Accenture TV which automates and delivers real time video and meta data for corporate communications.

Continental Airlines also demonstrated how they are able to improve customer services with their internal line of business applications for their gate and reservation agents.

You can see all the announcements here in the press room, but overall a very good day today.

Thanks to all that made this happen!

Silverlight Powering Wimbledon 2009 Delivery in HD

2009-07-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

For those who have not seen it, Silverlight is powering NBC Sports coverage of Wimbledon 2009. You can check out the player features developed by another terrific Silverlight partner, IStreamPlanet. The player is set up to allow you to watch the various courts at your selection, and to fast forward, rewind, and even instant replay on live feeds. NBC even provides highlights and all the day's footage in case you missed the action.

Thanks to Mio and the crew for a great application, and NBCSports for the great content!

More Silverlight applications

2009-06-12T06:04:00.001-07:00

It's always a great feeling to surf the web and see partners pull together great experiences with the technology we help to create. While I always get asked if Microsoft is using Silverlight (the answer is yes, we have over 200+ applications on our own Microsoft.com and MSN.com properties), it's a testament to the explosive growth and the technology itself when you start seeing it show up more frequently in your casual day to day web experiences.

We blogged about this on our team site, but in case you haven't seen it, Nasa has released some footage from the International Space Station and on the Mars Science Lab. These applications use Photosynth, and they demonstrates the power that can be achieved when trying to deliver high resolution images, while also providing the ability to quickly navigate and manipulate large amounts of image data.

The second is the Country Music Awards, as they too have used Deepzoom to manipulate over 850+ images from the Country Music Awards show this week that users have submitted.

C

Netflix and Media Center, and HD video

2009-05-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

Today our friends in our Entertainment and Devices group announced that Netflix would be available in Windows Media Center. This is great for Silverlight, as this means that the Silverlight application will now be hosted in Windows Media Center.

There have been lots of blogging and announcements here, but the important thing that this denotes is that this continues to re-affirm our companies commitment to use Silverlight. Silverlight has only been out over 18 months and with over 200+ applications on Microsoft.com and MSN.com alone, we are continuing our momentum and growing market penetration which is great for all the designers and developers out there. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of downloads in the market already (in such short amount of time) thanks in part to our own properties and also those of our partners (like Netflix, Blockbuster, CBS, NBC, HSN, AOL, and many others).

One we just launched was EBay to create an auction item tracker in IE8 that allows you to track auctions in real time from within the browser. SL3 is now in beta and we have seen tremendous demand since our announcements at Mix and NAB. The launch of our Smooth Streaming (click here for a demo of 1080p playback) technology at NAB and the ability to "really" do HD video reliably with PVR over HTTP has helped to drive Silverlight mind share and I would say that the remainder of this year and 2010 will be really great for Silverlight and HD video on the net. Thanks to all of you who are making it happen.

Facebook API's and Brian Goldfarb

2009-04-29T17:52:00.001-07:00

I had to post this video of our wise and fearless marketing leader Brian Goldfarb demonstrating the power of Silverlight and WPF at the Facebook conference (per my blog below). Courtesy of Rafe Needleman

Microsoft shows off Facebook Open Stream API demos from Rafe Needleman on Vimeo.

Facebook API's and Silverlight

2009-04-28T18:55:00.001-07:00

We demonstrated some very interesting integration with Windows, WPF and Silverlight with Facebooks new Open Stream API's. We participated in thier developer event yesterday to demonstrate some of the integration that could be achieved between MS and Facebook.

We released more detail on our team blog but needless to say we are not standing still and will be providing more info and detail on our plans here shortly. Here is a snip of some of the info from our blog:

Microsoft and Facebook have been working together since 2007 via the Facebook Developer Toolkit – a first of its kind open source solution to help developers integrate into and build applications for Facebook users. If you are building an application for the web, desktop, or mobile, and want to make it social and integrate it with Facebook, we will provide the tools and resources you need to create visually stunning, cutting edge applications faster than ever before.

At the event, we gave an early look at what will be possible by demonstrating canonical applications built with Silverlight and .NET. First we showed a Windows application, built with WPF, that shows the power of what .NET and Windows has to offer, via caching and sync, incredible performance, feed integration, automatic docking and adaptive UI, taskbar integration, search and more. The second was a Web application, built with Silverlight, that shows feed integration, profile exploring, and an incredible DeepZoom-based image viewing

experience with unique UX constructs for viewing large amounts of feed and friends-related photographic data. We will continue to build out these apps and will also ship the sourcecode in the future.

NAB 2009, Deepzoompix.com

2009-04-21T06:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday @ NAB here in Las Vegas we announced release of our Smooth Streaming technology. Smooth Streaming is a feature of our Internet Information Services (IIS) Media Services and we announced several key customers that are currently implementing it. Customers like NBC Sports for the Olympics in 2010, HSN, RIA, TV2, and CTV. Smooth Streaming is key to video delivery and provides minimal buffering and fast start up time, and allows the Silverlight player to work efficiently over HTTP to adapt the quality of the video stream in real time, based upon the consumer’s changing bandwidth, CPU utilization and frame rates.

Media companies can take advantage of Smooth Streaming features to boost advertising and subscription revenues by using true high-definition (HD) video (1080p) with uninterrupted delivery to extend viewing times. Smooth Streaming takes advantage of existing HTTP infrastructure and brings scale to media experiences delivered using HTTP.

We also showcased Akamai's Adaptive Edge, which is thier implementation of Smooth Streaming offered in a complete managed service for thier customers.

Several other CDN's announced support for Smooth Streaming: AT&T, Internap Network Services Corp., Level 3 Communications LLC and Limelight Networks Inc., as well as encoding product vendors including Digital Rapids, Envivio Inc., Grab Networks Inc. (Anystream), Inlet Technologies, Rhozet, Telestream Inc., VBrick Systems Inc., ViewCast Corp. and Winnov Inc., have all announced products and services supporting Smooth Streaming

We are also showcasing all of this in our booth (if you are here check it out in the South Hall, L720).

We also announced a new photo sharing service built in Silverlight and taking heavy advantage of Deepzoom. It's called Deepzoompix.com, and allows you to easily upload, or import photos from popular sharing services like Flickr and then display them quickly as a deepzoom collection.

Introducing a new Silverlight Team Blog

2009-03-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

I am happy to post that we have started a Silverlight Team blog which members of our marketing team have agreed to champion. We have a lot of people that work on Silverlight from marketing, business development, development, test, and other sister teams that contribute to the product. We will have various members of the Silverlight team posting here (including yours truly) so hope you will find the information valuable.

I will continue to post here on my own blog the things that I think are relevant to the Silverlight business and may time and time again refer to the team blog when appropriate.

Busy times for Silverlight

2009-03-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus between posts as we have been heads down gearing up for several great Silverlight powered events like CBS's March Madness on Demand 2009, SxSW (South by Southwest Music Festival), and as well all the great things our team is doing at Mix09 this week in Vegas. We announced many things this week besides March Madness on Demand with CBS, we also announced Silverlight being used for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

These events are great opportunities to not only demonstrate the flexibility of the technology, but also gives us a chance to get our team out to meet with our customers.

Check out MMOD today and watch all your games in HQ with Silverlight..

Silverlight Moonlight 1.0 ships today

2009-02-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Novell has released version 1.0 of Moonlight for Linux. http://go-mono.com/moonlight/. Moonlight is an open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight for Unix systems. Congrats on the release and look forward to the comments.

MSN Pretty in Ink

2009-01-27T16:28:00.001-08:00

MSN has just launched a new application in Silverlight called "Pretty in Ink". What's cool about this application is it ties in a creative, realistic photo experience with the quality and an HD image experience using deep zoom. The application is a leap ahead of the previous site . I am sure you will spend a lot of time here, which again is a great testament to how Silverlight can help monetize applications. More time in the application, means more opportunity to connect with your customer, which could lead to additional ad revenue and that's good for everyone.

C

Silverlight Coverage of the Inauguration

2009-01-20T12:31:00.001-08:00

What a day it's been, we have seen tremendous coverage of the Presidential Inauguration and the use by many organizations to consume the streams using Silverlight. Our team has aggregated some of the articles today and it's nice to see the press and attention Silverlight has received, but in reality it's even better to be part of such a great historic event.

Some interesting things to note, we (thanks to Ben Waggoner) did some late night wrangling with Novel to get the linux version available and Istream (thanks Mio) did some test feeds so that the Novell team could get an early version running.

My favorite blog post was Dan Rayburn, who really enjoyed our CBS feeds with Move Networks.

My other favorite application is the CNN Photosynth application, where users submit thier own and we combine them into a large collage that you can drill into.

CBS Best Inauguration Video Quality, Hulu, CSPAN the Worst, Others Not LoadingStreaming MediaJanuary 20, 2009; by Dan Rayburnhttp://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2009/01/best-i.html

Original Articles:
Microsoft, CNN team up to make historians out of inaugural attendees
Computerworld
January 19, 2009; by Sharon Gaudin
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126320&intsrc=news_ts_head

Silverlight to Stream Obama’s Inauguration
IDG News Service
January 19, 2009; by Elizabeth Montalbano
http://www.macworld.com/article/138284/2009/01/silverlight.html

Silverlight will be used to Stream Inauguration Ceremony
News Factor Network
January 19, 2009; by Jennifer LeClaire
http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Silverlight-To-Stream-Inauguration/story.xhtml?story_id=103009GSN3O7&full_skip=1

Inauguration coverage in cyberspace
Government Computer News
January 19, 2009; by Joab Jackson
http://gcn.com/articles/2009/01/19/inauguration-tools.aspx

Silverlight to follow Obama in US Presidency
The Register
January 17, 2009; by Gavin Clarke
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/17/obama_silverlight/

Microsoft’s Silverlight: Yes We Can
CNET
January 17, 2009; by Leslie Katz
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10145058-93.html

Microsoft’s Silverlight to Stream the Inauguration
Windows IT Pro
January 16, 2009; by Sheila Molnar
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/101269/microsofts-silverlight-to-stream-the-inauguration.html

Blog Posts:
CBS Best Inauguration Video Quality, Hulu, CSPAN the Worst, Others Not Loading
Streaming Media
January 20, 2009; by Dan Rayburn
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2009/01/best-i.html

Microsoft, Moonlight reach across aisle to bring Obama inauguration to Linux desktops
ZDNet
January 20, 2009; by Paula Rooney
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=3303

CBS Serves up 7 HD Streams for Inauguration Day
ZatzNotFunny
January 20, 2009; by Mari Silbey
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2009-01/cbs-serves-up-7-hd-streams-for-inauguration-day/

How Will You Follow the Inauguration Online?
Washington Post / Faster Forward Blog
January 20, 2009; by Rob Pegoraro
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2009/01/how_will_you_follow_the_inaugu.html?wprss=fasterforward

Digital Overload at Inauguration?
The Wall Street Journal
January 20, 2009; by Marisa Taylor
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/01/20/digital-overload-at-inauguration/

Linux Users Enjoy the Inauguration Thanks to…Microsoft?
InformationWeek
January 20, 2009; by Serdar Yegulalp
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/01/linux_users_enj.html

Obama’s Inauguration coming to you live Through Silverlight
Waleg
January 20, 2009; by Raissa
http://www.waleg.com/techgadgets/archives/015017.html

Obama Inauguration shines on Linux too with Moonlight
Ars Technica
January 20, 2009; by Ryan Paul
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090120-obama-inauguration-shines-on-linux-too-with-moonlight.html

Technology Players Gear up for Inauguration
Contentinople
January 20, 2009; by Ryan Lawler
http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=170570

Inauguration: Help Capture the Moment
PC World
January 19, 2009; by Peggy Watt
http://www.pcworld.com/article/157950/inauguration_help_capture_the_moment.html

Obama’s Inaugural Address: A Tipping Point for Silverlight?
Mashable
January 19, 2009; by Jennifer Van Grove
http://mashable.com/2009/01/19/obama-inaugural-address/

Inauguration Streams Live with Silverlight
Tom’s Guide
January 19, 2009; by Kevin Parish
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/FLash-Microsoft-silverlight-Obama,news-3320.html

Some Linux backers upset about selection of Silverlight to stream Obama inauguration events
ZDNet
January 19, 2008; by Paula Rooney
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=3302

Silverlight at the Heart of Obama’s Swearing-In Ceremony
Softpedia
January 19, 2009; by Marius Oiaga
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Silverlight-at-the-Heart-of-Obama-039-s-Inauguration-Swearing-in-Ceremony-102270.shtml

Silverlight and Photosynth to gain with Obama’s Inauguration
Ars Technica
January 19, 2009; by Emil Protalinski
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2009/01/19/silverlight-and-photosynth-to-gain-with-obamas-inauguration

Microsoft’s Silverlight Technology Gets a Major New Client
eFluxMedia
January 18, 2009; by Michael Todd
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Microsofts_Silverlight_Technology_Gets_A_New_Major_Client_33533.html

Microsoft Silverlight to be Used for Online Broadcast of Obama Inaugural
Gotta Be Mobile
January 17, 2009; by Warner Crocker
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/01/17/microsoft-silverlight-to-be-used-for-online-broadcast-of-obama-inaugural/

Silverlight to Shine on Obama’s Inauguration
NewTeeVee
January 16, 2009; by Chris Albrecht
http://newteevee.com/2009/01/16/silverlight-to-shine-on-obamas-inauguration/

Obama team chooses Microsoft’s Silverlight for streaming online video
TG Daily
January 16, 2009; by Rick Hodgin
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41061/122/

Silverlight Makes History
Microsoft Watch / eWEEK
January 16, 2009; by Joe Wilcox
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/web_services_browser/silverlight_makes_history.html

Microsoft’s Silverlight to stream online video of inauguration
USA Today (Technology Live Blog)
January 16, 2009; by Byron Acohido
http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/01/microsofts-silv.html

Microsoft to Offer Inaugural Web Video
Tech Daily Dose / Congress Daily
January 16, 2009; by Staff Writer
http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2009/01/microsoft-to-offer-inaugural-w.php

Obama inauguration to stream online in Microsoft Silverlight
Tech Flash
January 16, 2009; by Todd Bishop
http://www.techflash.com/Obama_inauguration_to_stream_online_in_Microsoft_Silverlight_37721089.html

Microsoft’s Silverlight chosen to stream the Inauguration
The Seattle PI
January 16, 2009; by Joseph Tartakoff
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/159655.asp?from=blog_last3

Radio Broadcast:
“Jeff Levy on Computers” interview with Eric Schmidt
KRLA-AM, Los Angeles
January 17, 2009
To listen to the full interview, please click here.

Silverlight Selected by Presidential Inaugural Committee to Enable Online Video Streaming of Inauguration Events

2009-01-17T08:36:00.001-08:00

Following up our efforts from the Democratic National Convention we have been asked to participate in streaming live the Inauguration of our 44th president. No matter what side of the political spectrum you sit, this is unarguably going to be one of the most historic events in our country's political process and we are proud to be a part of it. I have included our press release below and want to say thank you to one of our premier partners IStreamplanet for their support and efforts to bring you this historic event. You can check out the committee's website for more information. http://www.pic2009.org/.

Scott Barnes on our marketing team has also posted a great list of other area's where Silverlight is being used for this inaguration. Companies like CNN, CBS are using our technology to deliver even more information on this historic event.

http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2009/01/17/silverlight-is-all-over-the-moment.aspx

Press Release Start
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jan09/01-16PICMSSilverlightPR.mspx

Microsoft Silverlight Selected by Presidential Inaugural Committee to Enable Online Video Streaming of Inauguration Events

Official swearing in, President-elect Obama’s Whistle Stop Tour event to be streamed online.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jan. 16, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) has selected the company’s Silverlight technology to enable live and on-demand video streaming of the official inauguration swearing-in ceremony on the PIC Web site at http://www.pic2009.org/. As part of its efforts to hold the most open and accessible inauguration in history, on Saturday, Jan. 17, the PIC will also stream video of a Baltimore event on the Whistle Stop Tour that will take President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden to Washington, D.C., from Philadelphia.

“Microsoft is proud to be part of this event by helping to bring the inauguration activities online,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel. “Just as during the campaign itself, Internet technology is enabling people around the world to participate more directly in historic events in new and exciting ways.”

In August the 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) used Microsoft Silverlight to stream convention proceedings, including President-elect Obama’s acceptance speech.

Microsoft collaborated with iStreamPlanet Co. to develop and implement the rich media player experience powered by Microsoft Silverlight. “We welcome the opportunity to work with Microsoft again to demonstrate our expertise and ability to meet the challenges involved in such a watershed event in the history of webcasting,” said Mio Babic, CEO of iStreamPlanet.

“Microsoft Silverlight was built to enable people to consume online content in unique and engaging ways,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft. “This will be a truly historic event, and we are honored to enable online viewers to participate and create really meaningful experiences.”

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

Windows Live Launch and Silverlight announcements during CES

2009-01-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all of you and sorry for the lag between posts. I was able to take some very well deserved vacation and with the Holiday's tried to stay away from the keyboard. In case you missed the CES2009 Keynote by Steve Ballmer, we announced the availability of the next version of Windows Live Suite.

Windows Live is a free suite of communications and sharing applications. Windows Live makes it easy for people to communicate, share and keep their online lives in sync and in one place with one login. The new and enhanced Windows Live services — including PCMag.com 2008 Editors’ Choice winner Windows Live Messenger — along with Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Photo Gallery are designed to work seamlessly with more than 50 popular Internet services.

What's important about this announcement is that the Windows Live team has integrated Silverlight into their suite and they utilize Silverlight as part of their rich photo experience to play slide shows and organize photos.

I have been asked several times about Microsoft Silverlight usage and this is another great demonstration on how our internal product teams are adopting Silverlight to build more compelling user experiences as part of their applications online reach.

Some other great related announcements from the keynote:

Dell Inc. In February, to offer a comprehensive experience for consumers to connect, share and personalize their content, Dell will offer preloaded Windows Live Essentials (a free suite of applications for instant messaging, e-mail and photos that complement Windows Live on the Web) and Live Search on a majority of its new consumer and small-business PCs globally.
Facebook. In the coming months, Facebook users can choose to share content they post on Facebook, including photos, directly into Windows Live.
Verizon Wireless. Under a new five-year relationship that covers mobile search and advertising, Verizon subscribers in the U.S. will be able to use Live Search to search for local business and shopping information; access maps and directions; perform general Internet searches; and find ring tones, games, wallpaper and other online mobile products and services.

Silverlight, PlayReady and BSkyB

2008-12-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here is another great use case of Silverlight announced today with BSkyB.

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/dec08/12-04SkyPlayerPR.mspx

Sky Player TV Uses Microsoft Silverlight and PlayReady Technology
Silverlight and PlayReady enable BSkyB to deliver an expanded range of live content to Windows-based PC and Mac users.

Sky Player Web site

LONDON and REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 4, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. and BSkyB announce that Microsoft Silverlight and PlayReady technologies are enabling Sky Player TV, Sky’s online TV service. Launched today, the service offers access to a range of leading pay TV entertainment as part of an online-only subscription. The new version of Sky Player TV, which in addition continues to be offered on a bonus basis to Sky’s DTH (direct-to-home) customers, now delivers live linear channels and video-on-demand content to Windows-based PCs and, for the first time, includes live channel support for Macs.

Sky Player allows consumers with a broadband connection in the U.K. and Ireland to subscribe to watch a package of channels from Sky on their computer without the need for a dish or aerial. Sky Player TV has expanded the content available to include live streaming of linear channels including all the Sky Sports channels, Sky News, The Disney Channel, National Geographic and British Eurosport — with enhanced video quality using bitrates of up to 1.8 Mbps.

“Microsoft Silverlight and PlayReady allowed us to build and launch this innovative service quickly, easily and in a package that provides consumers with even more flexibility in how they engage with Sky content,” said Griff Parry, director of On-Demand, BSkyB. “As technologies that can reliably enable the rich delivery of high-quality protected content to both Windows-based PCs and Macs, the use of Silverlight and PlayReady was key in helping us provide our customers with more choice and control over their viewing.”

Microsoft Silverlight, the next-generation cross-browser platform for delivering rich media through the Web, uses Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady to enable the protected delivery of rich content experiences over an Internet connection, with reach to both Windows-based PC and Mac users. The combination of these two technologies and close collaboration with Microsoft enabled Sky to bring the enhanced Sky Player TV service to market with greater speed and efficiency. Sky also took advantage of the rich programming capabilities in Silverlight to build an electronic program guide (EPG) in the Sky Player TV that replicates the look, feel and functionality of Sky’s familiar EPG, but with the benefits of operating with an interactive, connected environment.

“We brought technologies like Silverlight and PlayReady to market with this type of immersive experience and fast-to-market execution in mind,” said Chadd Knowlton, general manager of the Content Access and Protection Group at Microsoft. “Working closely with Sky allowed us to showcase the unique capabilities of our technologies and play a role in allowing consumers to receive and engage with their favorite TV content in a new way.”
Silverlight’s use of PlayReady technology for content protection means that Sky can use the PlayReady Server SDK to deliver its range of Windows Media DRM-protected content to Silverlight clients on both Windows-based PCs and Macs.

Sky is making the new online only Sky Player TV service available today and will allow customers to choose from a number of online subscription packages. Existing Sky TV customers will continue to enjoy access to Sky Player in line with their core direct-to-home TV subscription entitlement. For Mac users, the new service includes support for all live linear channels with plans to add support for on-demand content sometime next year.More information about the Sky Player service can be found by visiting http://www.sky.com/skyplayer

Two new Silverlight MSN sites live

2008-12-01T19:55:00.000-08:00

Our sister group at MSN and Moneycentral just launched 2 new Silverlight columns:

Crisis and Recovery – The Dow Jones Industrials
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/crisis-and-recovery-the-dow-jones-industrials.aspx

Ahead of the Curve
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/ahead-of-the-curve-columnists.aspx

Check em out and tell me what you think..

C

New Book on Silverlight 2

2008-11-19T18:08:00.000-08:00

I just received word that another great book on Silverlight 2 is available. It's from some of the best technical resources on our evangelism team. It's called "Silverlight 2 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach" and is available on Amazon.com. Special thanks to Jit Ghosh (Author), Rob Cameron (Author) and I am happy to work with such smart people. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication to the platform.

Adaptive Streaming and Silverlight

2008-11-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

I had several emails and comments about our adaptive streaming announcement with Akamai and how this relates to our relationship with Move networks. I thought I would comment on these two announcements and outline the significance of both.

To understand the value of these two announcements you first need to understand what our underlying goals are. We (on the Silverlight team) are in the Server and Tools Division, and our division is responsible for the development tools (Visual Studio, Expression Studio), server products (Windows Server 2008 with IIS for example), Silverlight and of course other great applications like SQL Server, Biztalk, etc. One of our division goals is focused on building platform technologies (think of Windows Media Services, Active Directory, etc.) that help enhance application development.

These announcements are important to us because they both validate the improvements and investments we are making in our platform above and beyond what we delivered with Windows Media and Windows Server over the last few years. They also both validate the direction that that HTTP delivery is the future of content delivery vs. proprietary protocols like MMS, MSBD, RTMP, and in a lot of cases RTSP (most are implementation specific). The internet was built on HTTP, and we will continue to make investments in this area with Silverlight and IIS.

The first announcement with Move Networks is significant because it allows Silverlight to provide rich client functionality on top of an already popular, and fast growing end-to-end TV system. Microsoft and Move are continuing to collaborate so that Move can continue to offer the best TV platform for high quality, TV like experiences. Thier platform is targeted at content owners and broadcasters who want to build TV like services on the web. Silverlight provides the user experience and interactivity, and Move provides the seamless delivery (utilizing Windows Server), ad serving, analytics, and publishing services that are critical services to content companies as they move their content online. These systems already provide valuable services to companies like Disney, Televisa, Fox, CW, etc. and you can see the Silverlight integration with Move in action here at the site of the Democratic National Convention. We will continue to collaborate with Move very closely and value them as a very strategic partner.

The Akamai announcement is every bit as important, because it validates the upcoming extensions to the platform with IIS. These extensions continue to give IIS a competive advantage and since Akamai is in the business of delivering content over the internet it provides them a more robust delivery mechanism for audio and video delivery.

Our adaptive streaming technology called Smooth Streaming, is an upcoming media extension for IIS 7.0 which enables adaptive streaming of media to Silverlight clients over HTTP. It provides Akamai a way to enhance what they already do well with content delivery. Smooth Streaming is not an end-to-end system, rather a feature in an upcoming release of our platform technologies that others can build services on top of.

Akamai is the first to demonstrate our beta technology in a new product offering called adaptive edge and they demonstrate smooth streaming on thier demo site at http://smoothhd.com/. Adaptive edge combined with thier open player framework with Silverlight provides a very compelling option for companies looking to bring high quality video online.

Akamai's SmoothHD.com is powered by Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 7.0 as part of their global network infrastructure of over 36,000 http servers. We value the strategic relationship with Akamai and will continue to collaborate with them to deploy services on our platform.

Overall both announcements are good for Microsoft and the industry at large, and consumers will see the benefits as higher quality audio and video is delivered to them moving forward. We will continue to invest in our platform technologies and work with partners who are extremely interested in building on it.

Silverlight gaining support within Media and Entertainment

2008-10-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

We are having a busy week, between PDC (Professional Developers Conference) and Digital Hollywood in LA this week.

Participating in these shows gives us the opportunity to announce several key partnerships that continue to validate the momentum and continued adoption of Silverlight within the Media and Entertainment markets.

The first is an announcement by Netflix, which announced the launch of their new Instant Watch service for their Mac and Windows customers using Silverlight. This is on the heal of our Silverlight 2 launch where we announced 1 in 4 people have access to a PC with Silverlight and where we announced several key relationships with media and entertainment companies like Blockbuster, CBS College Sports, and others who are building rich media applications with Silverlight.

The second announcement focused on our server platform and continued evolution of our server platform to support better experiences via rich delivery features. Akamai and Microsoft announced that Akamai will deploy our new "Smooth Streaming" technology that will be incorporated in IIS 7.0 via our Media Pack and will be supported in Silverlight for their new Adaptive Edge service.

Smooth Streaming is an upcoming media extension for IIS 7.0, enables adaptive streaming of media to Silverlight clients over HTTP. Smooth Streaming dynamically detects and seamlessly switches the video quality of a media file a Silverlight player receives based on local PC conditions. Consumers with high bandwidth connections can experience HD quality streaming and others with lower bandwidth speeds receive the appropriate stream for their connectivity, allowing the audience to enjoy a consistent high quality streaming experience without buffering or stuttering.

It's also important to note here that we continue to invest and evolve our core platform technologies (those that we established with Windows Server and Windows Media) and will continue to work with customers like Blockbuster, Netflix, Akamai, and Move Networks to enhance our platform so they can deliver solutions that engage consumers, provide cost savings and value to their business'.

C

Silverlight Partners

2008-10-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

Now that launch is over, we have have been heads down working on new Silverlight business oppritunities and continuing to work on building key partnerships in the industry, similar to our business with Move Networks. For those who don't know we have over 150+ partners (design agencies, .net development houses, etc.) that are already working with or doing Silverlight development. So if you are in need of a partner or want to work with someone who has experience please check out our partner site.

I'll call the attention to Cypress Consulting. Cypress is working with CBS College Sports to roll out over 150+ Silverlight applications for Universities to broadcast thier athletic events. You can see one of the live applications here at The University of Notre Dame.

Our partner site features partners that have done great work with Silverlight 2 and we have many more coming online daily. If you are interested in joining the ranks and becoming a part of our partner program, feel free to send mail to slpart@microsoft.com.

Silverlight 2 available and adoption growing rapidly

2008-10-13T19:03:00.001-07:00

Today I am happy to say we have reached a major milestone with Silverlight 2 by making the final version available for download today. Several highlights of our release:

Announcing the launch of the final version of Silverlight 2
Announcing further support of open source community by funding Silverlight in Eclipse development (http://www.eclipse4sl.org)/
Announcing an open source controls toolpack under MPL
1 in 4 consumers worldwide has access to a computer with Silverlight already installed with some countries penetration approaching 50%
Growing ecosystem: 150 Partners, tens of thousands of applications
Olympics had 50m unique visitors, 1.3Billion page views, 70m video streams and 600m minutes of video played
Large companies with next generation Web experiences using Silverlight: CBS College Sports, Blockbuster, Hard Rock Café, Yahoo! Japan, AOL, Toyota, HSN and Tencent

We will also release the Silverlight Control Pack and publish on MSDN the technical specification for the Silverlight Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary. The SCP, will augment the built-in control set in Silverlight and will be released under the Microsoft Permissive License, an Open Source Initiative-approved license, and includes controls such as DockPanel, ViewBox, TreeView, Accordion and AutoComplete.

More information and a fact sheet, custom evidence and updated partner quotes can be found on our Virtual press room located here.

Highlights of new Silverlight 2 features include the following:

.NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.
Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more.
Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.
Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.
Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems.
Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.
Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences.
Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support.
Vibrant partner ecosystem. Visual Studio Industry Partners such as ComponentOne LLC, Infragistics Inc. and Telerik Inc. are providing products that further enhance developer capabilities when creating Silverlight applications using Visual Studio.
Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

Announcing Silverlight with H.264 and AAC

2008-09-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

I am happy to post that we will be announcing and demonstrating at IBC that we will include support for H.264 and AAC in a future version of Silverlight. Along with many other great new features and customers in Europe. Silverlight adoption by major media, broadcasting and content companies has continued to grow significantly in European markets. Examples include innovative live and video-on-demand (VOD) offerings from France Television, ITV, L’Equipe TV, MSN UK, NRK, RAI, RTL, SBS, Setanta and TF1.

Microsoft was recently recognized as a key contributor to the development of the High Profile of the H.264 standard by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences when they awarded a Primetime Emmy Engineering award to the JVT group that created the standard (thanks to Gary Sullivan).

You can see the full Q&A with Scott Guthrie .

Sunday Night Football on NBC

2008-09-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have had several mails today and saw several articles that NBC "dumped" Silverlight for Sunday Night Football. I wanted to set the record straight here. NBC has not dumped Silverlight, nor for that matter forgot to use Silverlight. :) NBC and Microsoft pulled off the largest, most viewed online event ever and the video quality, along with the user experience set the bar for new, more advanced applications online. Our relationship could not be stronger with NBC, and the success of the event has propelled our partnership to new levels. We are moving forward together and we are looking to do more with them in the near future.

To better understand how this played out you have to understand how the technology decisions are made. For the 2008 Olympics, NBC had all the broadcast and online rights in the US (reported to have paid 800+ million) to the Olympics coverage and therefore was the primary decision maker in what technology would be used. In this case they chose to use Silverlight and partnered with MSN to promote and drive traffic to their application.

Unlike the Olympics, Sunday Night Football is a joint effort between the NFL and NBC Sports. The NFL made the technology choices on what technology to use online and was ultimately responsible for the application. The NFL chose flash. It's even called out in the Adobe press release.

Nothing wrong with that, the market is big enough for both, and I applaud the NFL for taking a step to push the envelope with their web efforts to support their brand. I am sure they will work out the kinks, as they have a talented team. To say, Silverlight was dumped by NBC, or forgotten by NBC is unfortunately an effort to drive more views and TBH, just poor journalism. I would love to get your take on the NFL application, what you like, don't like, etc.

Look forward to your comments.

C