UNLEASH THE CREATIVITY OF YOUR DESIGNERS AS THEY COLLABORATE WITH DEVELOPERS USING THE INTEGRATION BETWEEN EXPRESSION STUDIO’S CREATIVE TOOLS AND THE VISUAL STUDIO FAMILY OF DEVELOPMENT TOOLS.

Talk to anyone building interactive applications, and they will tell you about the promise and the frustration of user experience design. Concepts that look great in photo editing tools rarely lend themselves well to actual implementation, while tools that mash together designer and developer disciplines often fall short. In organizations lucky enough to have dedicated designers, they are often forced to spend more time on programming than on actual design. While the integration of developer and designer disciplines is increasing, it is hardly the norm. This is why Microsoft Expression Studio was created.

Whether developing applications for the desktop or the Web, the Expression products will allow designers to fully engage with developers to finally bridge the gap in the designer/developer workflow. This will bring together the best minds in design and development to create applications and sites with a focus on great User Experience (UX).

REDEPLOY THE SAME DESIGN ASSETS, APPLICATION CODE, AND MEDIA ASSETS FROM SILVERLIGHT ACROSS DESKTOP APPLICATIONS, CONNECTED WEB EXPERIENCES, AND MOBILE PHONES REDUCING THE NEED FOR DEVICE SPECIFIC DEVELOPMENT.

Silverlight works with all leading browsers and operating systems, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, bringing great experiences to Macs and Windows PCs today. Microsoft is also working with Novell to deliver a Linux-based implementation of Silverlight (code-named “Moonlight”).

Since Silverlight is a subset of Windows Presentation Foundation, you can simply re-compile your application and have it target the Windows desktop. You can then exploit additional features such as access to local storage, devices, the desktop and system tray. All this can be done using the same development language, tools, and API.
The same is also true for media. In fact, the same media can be delivered to Windows Media-enable applications on the desktop, Windows Media-enabled devices and mobile phones, and Silverlight-based players on Macs and PCs using the same IIS or WMS servers for download or streaming.  This is true for both unprotected and WMDRM-protected content and greatly reduces time to market and the cost of migrating existing Windows Media content services over to Silverlight.

Going forward, Microsoft will also deliver these experiences on mobile devices. Bringing Silverlight to devices expands the reach that developers and designers have when creating rich internet applications, and enables them to easily leverage content, assets, and code that they are using today for browser-based Silverlight applications. 
Microsoft will add support for Windows Mobile and is planning to work with Nokia to enable Silverlight on many of their mobile phones and operating systems (for example, Nokia Series 60).  Support for Silverlight on Windows Mobile and Nokia devices will quickly help change the landscape for the types of user experiences consumers can expect from their phones by bridging rich interactivity, wireless data, media and more. We will continue to explore other mobile operating systems and devices over time.   

In summary, Silverlight on mobile adds a clear route for extending applications/services into the consumer’s pocket. If you’re building Silverlight applications for the Web now, then you’re already building Silverlight applications for mobile in the future. Just like the Web version, Silverlight on mobile will take the form of a browser plug-in.

MONETIZE ASSETS WITH A VARIETY OF AD MODELS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS SUPPORTED BY THE WINDOWS MEDIA ECOSYSTEM. INTEGRATE EASILY WITH LEADING ONLINE ADVERTISING SYSTEMS LIKE DOUBLECLICK AND EYEWONDER.

Content Protection for Monetization

For nearly a decade, content providers have been employing Microsoft’s Windows Media Digital Rights Management (WMDRM) technology to provide a variety of secure media services to consumers on PC’s, devices, and mobile phones.  From download-to-own and streaming movie rental services to subscription-based music services, WMDRM has proven to be the most robust and widely deployed digital media protection technology to date.
The next generation of WMDRM, called Microsoft PlayReady, builds on this legacy and provides new innovation around encryption robustness, performance, and flexibility.  With the introduction of Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady content distributors can extend the reach of their services and offer more advanced experiences to an even broader set of PC and Mac users.

Integrated Advertising

As the market for online advertising continues to grow around the world, the technology powering rich media-based ads needs to be up for the challenge. Complex business needs and creative capabilities demand more than simple animation and basic tagging – which is where Silverlight comes in. Silverlight enables lightning-fast development through familiar markup and controls based on XML that, combined with integrated productivity tools such as Expression Studio, Visual Studio and the Visual Studio Team System help designers and developers work better together and push the limits of interactive innovation. When designers and developers work better to bring advertising ideas to life, campaigns can be more nimble, more powerful and more effective. Silverlight enables agencies and advertisers to create, launch, measure and quickly respond to online advertising campaigns through powerful controls and fully integrated tools.

Silverlight supports hooks to enable various in-stream advertising systems, such as linear pre-rolls, post-rolls, and interstitials, as well as non-linear ads such as ticker or transparent overlays. In addition to supporting various ad formats, Silverlight can integrate with ad servers for dynamic insertion, such as systems from DoubleClick and EyeWonder. Tags and scripts in the content can invoke the server at runtime and ads can be rendered seamlessly during playback. Connectors available via various publishing frameworks such as Akamai’s Open Video Framework make it easy for publishers to build Silverlight-based advertising experiences with direct hooks into ad networks and online tracking systems for reporting. Silverlight has a rich eventing model allowing deep analytics. Support exists today for Neilsen Netratings, Omniture and Gridsum. Silverlight is an approved format by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and as such, enables agencies and advertisers to create, launch, measure and quickly respond to online advertising campaigns through powerful controls and fully integrated tools.