SilverLight and Android... Recent topics.

The essential story is that a few years back Microsoft came to determine that they too could create a language that would enable Microsoft to participate on the emergence of alternate OSs on the smartphone with a Flash-like alternate, Silverlight. As Silverlight is a Micorsoft solution, an open source form has been created to create an OS version known as Moonlight.

Moonlight is a lesser brother to Silverlight; it has been ported on Android tablets.  On the moment Micorsoft is porting Silverlight on the Nokia platform, WM7.  There is thought that if Micorsoft were to fully port Silverlight over to Android that suddenly Flash would have competition?

More FYI....

Silverlight on Android?

June 7th, 2010 by mgkimsalLeave a reply »

I just read a quick blurb about Android’s inventor suggesting they’d welcome Silverlight on the Android.  A quick search around showed there was some activity on this topic in March, but it seems to have died off.  Is this actually coming?  It’d be interesting to see if MS could pull it off and make it run in the JVM.  That would have larger implications for non-Android devices (better support under Linux, perhaps?) certainly, but also be a strategic threat against Flash.

Right now “flash on the iphone” is still (for some reason) some big meme in the webosphere.  Well, I get the reasons, and I think it’s more to do with Jobs’ aggressive stance than it is people actually missing the tech in most casses.  Were Silverlight to be available on Android devices, there would be a much stronger case for people to consider developing in Silverlight in the first place.  As cool as SL is from a pure geek standpoint, there’s still little reason for most people to learn it unless you’re targetting a pure MS-deployment environment.  Yes, there’s a Mac plugin, but it’s just something we rarely see outside of MS shops writing for their own, or basically not caring about web-standards and cross-platform accessibility all that much (any modern SL app will automatically preclude Linux and non-Intel Macs).

So, will MS join forces with Google (metaphorically speaking) to do battle for mobile-dev mindshare against Apple?  Having a cross-device RIA stack won’t do the trick on its own, but certainly does add a bit more complexity to the mix.

 Mono Brings Silverlight to the Android Tablet and Phone

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Apr 18, 2011

Under the mantra, “We love .NET more than Microsoft”, Mono has been making the promise of cross-platform .NET development a reality. First there was the native toolkit support for iOS and Android, now they are opening up the world of Android tablets to Silverlight developers.


Silverlight is a natural fit for the tablet format. It’s relatively lightweight runtime and rich UI capabilities makes it an ideal platform when you want a richer experience than you can get with straight HTML without the expense of writing native UI layers for each device. Unfortunately Microsoft has backed away from its cross-platform aspirations for Silverlight.


This is where Novell’s Mono saw an opportunity. After a week of long days and longer nights, members of the Mono team were able to port their Silverlight implementation for Linux to the Android tablet in time for Miguel’s “Mono: State of the Union” session at MIX. During this presentation the hardware acceleration features of Moonlight were demonstrated using a Motorola Xoom.


During the presentation Miguel said that Moonlight would only be targeted for the Android Tablet. Since then a video was posted on Jeffrey Stedfast’s blog showing the same demo running on a Nexus S phone.


It should be noted that Moonlight on Android is not yet a complete product. They are still in the early stages of porting the code and there is still much left to do. The fourth version of Moonlight on Linux is currently in preview with full support for Silverlight 3 and partial support for Silverlight 4.

In regards to iPad, a true implementation of Silverlight for the web is not currently possible. Running Silverlight in a browser would require JIT support, something that Apple doesn’t allow. Running out of the browser should be possible if someone were to port Moonlight to iOS using the same pre-compilation techniques that we use with MonoTouch. Such applications would then have to be offered via Apples App Store.

Microsoft set to launch beta of Silverlight for Symbian

In March 2008, Microsoft and Nokia announced their commitment to make Silverlight available for certain Nokia phones running the Symbian operating system. Microsoft is finally ready to make a beta of that code available.

Microsoft briefly posted, then pulled, the download of the beta of the Silverlight for Symbian code on March 11, as well as the associated developer tools for that release. I grabbed the description of the downloads before they were zapped.

From the description of the tools:

“The installable executable file enables users to run Silverlight applications on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform. The executable file includes the Silverlight runtime for Nokia S60 5th Edition devices, the Silverlight runtime for Nokia S60 5th Edition emulator, sample applications, and developer documentation.”

And from the description of the Silverlight for Symbian beta:

“The installable executable enables user to run Silverlight applications on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform.”

Microsoft is likely to make the downloads of these two offerings available the week of March 14, given that the company’s annual Mix Web developer conference kicks off that week.

When Microsoft and Nokia announced two years ago their deal to develop the port of Silverlight to Symbian, the pair said to expect the final code before the end of 2008. They’ll be close to two years late if they deliver the final by the end of this calendar year.

Microsoft officials also have been hinting that a port of Silverlight to Android was just around the corner for the past year-plus. I’m wondering if we might get an update on that port, as well, at Mix 10, given that Microsoft is expected to roll out in detail its Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 OS plans at next week’s confab….

Update (March 16): The Silverlight for Symbian beta is now live. More info here: http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/silverlight.

ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight/WPF 1.2

To download the latest version of the product, go to: http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/silverlight 

Version 1.2 was released March 2010 (build 177). See the What's New document for more details.


The ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight™/WPF™ enables you to create rich internet and desktop applications that utilize the powerful mapping, geocoding, and geoprocessing capabilities provided by ArcGIS Server and Bing™ services. The API is built on the Microsoft Silverlight/WPF platform which is integrated with Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend 3. The Microsoft Silverlight platform includes a lightweight version of the .NET Framework CLR (CoreCLR) and the Silverlight runtime - all hosted via a browser plug-in.


To use the API you simply download and install the ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight/WPF and and start creating your Silverlight or WPF applications using Visual Studio 2008 or Expression Blend 3.