Important break-through for Silverlight

OLYMPICS - NBC Universal and Microsoft Team Up On Web Offering for 2008 Beijing Olympic Games using Silverlight

Topline - NBC Universal, owner of the exclusive U.S. media rights to this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing, China (August 8-24, 2008), announced at the CES conference in Las Vegas that it was teaming up with MSN and Microsoft in an unprecedented strategic alliance to create “NBCOlympics.com on MSN”, a next-generation online experience for Olympic fans across the United States. With thousands of hours of competition video in both live and on-demand formats, deep analysis and results delivered from NBC’s award-winning broadcast and digital media teams, and Microsoft’s Silverlight technology to deliver deeply immersive user experiences, NBCOlympics.com’s coverage will be powered by MSN and Microsoft technology to complement NBC’s broadcast programming and put millions of fans in control of the Olympic sports, athletes and countries they want to watch. The new alliance was announced during the keynote presentation of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Noteworthy:

• NBC abandoned their original plans to have a Flash-based video player, and decided to switch to Silverlight 2.0 (yes, when delivered, this app will be the first major Silverlight 2.0 app to light up the Web)
• Millions of users are to be foreseen for this  NBCOlympics means millons of PC's will have installed the Silverlight runtime.  Silverlight on every desk and in every home (somehow sounds familiar :-) ? Getting there!