1) Microsoft will launch Silverlight, its new video-player software, to capitalize on the burgeoning online video market. Internet video ads are expected to grow from $1.5 billion market in 2007 to $4.2 billion in 2011.
2) Silverlight can be used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser as well as Apple's Safari browser and Mozilla Foundation's Firefox. In addition to working with a variety of browsers, it also supports both next-generation DVD formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray.
3) Silverlight will let users trigger videos by clicking in a browser window, an easier method than the one now required by Windows Media Player.
4) Silverlight also includes copy-protection technology called PlayReady.
5) Microsoft has signed up Major League Baseball, Netflix and others to test the software.
6) Down the road, videos created to play with Silverlight could also run on Microsoft's Zune digital music player and Windows-powered cell phones.
7) Microsoft will soon release a line of Web design software that, when combined with Silverlight, will help developers create all manner of sophisticated online graphics. That software will work in conjunction with Windows Vista, tethering developers and their products all the more closely to Microsoft.
Is this enough to dislodge the predominant Adobe Flash Player installed on more than 700 million PCs from being the de facto standard for multimedia that runs in a browser and developers' target of choice?
If Adobe is hoping to extend its lead with the launch of its own ‘next level’ video player, has Microsoft actually got its ‘product differentiation strategies’ and 'market focus strategies’ right enough?
[Click here for full story at: BUSINESSWEEK.COM]
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