Silverlight comes to Symbian at last

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Silverlight comes to Symbian at last

Android may be next for Microsoft's Flash challenger, but not iPhone

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 6 July, 2010

Even by Microsoft standards, the Symbian version of its rich media platform Silverlight has suffered long delays. Originally promised for the end of 2008, it has now been made available at last, four months after its beta release.

The new release, available in Ovi Store, is for Nokia's newer generation handsets, running Series 60 5th Edition. These include the N97 and N97 Mini and the 5800 Series. Users of these handsets will be able to view Silverlight applications in their borwsers and build apps using the plug-in technology, an alternative to Adobe Flash.

Silverlight is the key development platform for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7, though it will not run in the browser on the initial WP7 handsets. The main appeal of the system, both for Microsoft and Nokia, is that it taps into the huge Windows .Net developer base - these programmers can reuse their .Net skills but also leverage Silverlight's rich user interface and media capabilities. In theory, a large pooled base of apps could be created, spanning Symbian and WP7, as well as MeeGo and possibly Android in future. Microsoft has not announced Android support officially, but has certainly not denied rumors of such a project.

Of course, Adobe Flash already crosses all these platforms too and has far greater installed base and developer credibility - and both Flash and Silverlight may eventually be overtaken by HTML5 and a new cloud oriented approach to mobile apps. Nokia surprised the world in 2008 by announcing vociferous support for Silverlight, at a time when it still appeared to regard Microsoft as a threat rather than a potential ally against Apple and Google. But it also has a very close relationship with Adobe.

As with Flash, Apple remains a non-supporter of Silverlight, because it does not allow runtimes and third party compilers on its operating systems (something that proposed changes to EU competition law may challenge). The main side door with which to run Silverlight on the iPhone - or, until it is officially ported, Android - is the open source Novell Mono project, whose Moonlight platform puts .Net technologies on non-Windows OSs. It has shown off MonoDroid, and iPhone and MeeGo versions (unlike some attempts to divorce Microsoft tools from Windows, Mono has the giant's support).

Silverlight was launched in early 2007 as a plug-in for developing and running rich media and interactive applications, based on.Net tools, in different browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari. It is part of Microsoft's bid to evolve a common development environment for Windows, web applications and online web services.