Silverlight 4 Hits the Web Today

Been a busy week of announcements and releases at Microsoft this week – like Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Released. Here’s another biggie:

Silverlight 4 offers powerful, innovative media and business application capabilities that enable developers to deliver compelling application experiences to many screens on or off the Web, and continues to show meteoric growth and momentum since its release in 2007.

New features in Silverlight 4 include: extended out-of-browser capabilities, webcam and microphone, native multicast support, enhancements for enterprise application developers as well as integration with Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Visual Studio 2010, and more than 60 customizable pre-written controls to quickly build rich, interactive applications.

Silverlight and IIS Media Services also finished a successful week of exhibiting at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) tradeshow, generating large buzz with their next-generation Silverlight TV experiences and Live 3D Demo, plus releases of the Microsoft Silverlight Media Framework and Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework—both of which are licensed for free to developers and businesses under the Microsoft open source agreement.

Additional Information & Resources
Additional Information & Resources

Silverlight 4 is fully supported by Visual Studio 2010 via a Silverlight tools update. The RC2 of Silverlight Tools is available today with the Silverlight 4 RTW, and the final version will be made available in the next month by downloading a simple add-on.

The Windows Phone Developer Tools and XNA Game Studio are not yet compatible with RTW of Silverlight 4 and RTM of Visual Studio 2010, but there will be an update in the "coming weeks" on support. Tools are available for developer Windows Phone 7 applications with Silverlight and Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone at the following links:

· Windows Phone for Developers

· Microsoft Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone

The Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Beta enables developers and designers to create Silverlight 4 applications for the Web, and is available via a free trial download:

Microsoft® Expression Blend™ 4 Beta