Microsoft's Silverlight 3 already available ahead of launch

Software giant is set to officially launch the multimedia technology at an event on Friday

By Paul Krill, InfoWorld
July 09, 2009 08:10 PM ET

Microsoft's Silverlight 3 technology, which adds offline capabilities to the company's rich Internet application platform, already is available for download on the Web, ahead of Friday's official launch event.

Silverlight 3 itself is available at this Web page while the SDK can be accessed at this page. An official launch event for Silverlight 3 and the accompanying Expression Studio 3 design toolset is set for Friday in San Francisco. A release candidate for the Expression Blend 3 product, for interactive design of user interfaces, also is available at this page and features SketchFlow for rapid prototyping of Web sites.

[ The upcoming HTML 5 specification could be a killer for technologies like Silverlight and Adobe Flash. ]

Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to the established Flash platform for multimedia experiences on the Web. Other features of Silverlight 3 include improvements in audio, video and 3D graphics. Better daata-binding and more controls also have been slated for Silverlight 3.