What is Silverlight?
Silverlight is a free plug-in development platform that is powered by the .NET framework. Silverlight enables users to create rich media and business applications. It can be used in applications for web, desktop and mobile devices. Silverlight can run on multiple browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Silverlight is owned and developed by Microsoft.

Silverlight aims to provide users with an enhanced experience through its speed, its super high quality video and cross-browser and cross-platform web applications. The Silverlight plug-in is a very small file that can be installed on command.

Silverlight is a direct competitor to Adobe Flash, although Silverlight is more of a presentation tool, versus Flash as a content tool. Silverlight is also a competitor to Ajax and JavaFX. Currently, there are two versions of Silverlight, Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 2.0 Silverlight 3.0 and Silverlight 4.0. The earlier versions of Silverlight focused mainly in streaming media, while the newer versions also have a focus on multimedia, graphics as well as animation. The most recent version, Silverlight 4.0 had its beta version released in November 2009, and the commercial version was released in April 2010. Silverlight 4.0 can also be supported by the Google Chrome browser.