Microsoft's Silverlight aims to topple Flash

Microsoft's answer to Adobe's Flash Player has an official name -- Silverlight -- and a coveted target audience: media and entertainment companies bringing video to the Web.

Microsoft is expected to launch Silverlight, a Web browser plug-in for playing media files and displaying interactive Web applications, today at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas. 

Along with the public launch of Silverlight, Microsoft plans to announce a number of media and advertising agency partners that have shown interest in using the software. Partners include online video broadcaster Brightcove, Netflix and Akamai Technologies.

Silverlight, which has been under development for at least two years, is a player that can display Web applications on both Windows and the Mac in Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. The download of the player will be less than 2MB.

Like Flash, it has accompanying development tools for both designers and software developers.

By launching Silverlight at the NAB conference, Microsoft is trying to spark the interest of media companies moving online. The company's Windows Media Video format is widely used, particularly for downloads. But Adobe's Flash Player has become the dominant choice for streaming video used by high-volume sites such as MySpace and YouTube.

Brightcove, for example, displays all of its video using Flash, but the company intends to support Silverlight as an output format later this year to appeal to customers who have shown interest in it, said Adam Berrey, vice president of marketing and strategy at the company.

"The most significant thing about Silverlight is that it basically puts the... Windows Media Video format in the browser in a really seamless way," he said. "The reason we haven't supported Windows Media Video until now is because we felt that the user experience wasn't there."

Brightcove will continue to build all its software, including tools that enable content providers to upload video to the Brightcove service, using Adobe's Flash and Flex development tools, Berrey said.