Difference Between AJAX and Silverlight

In the competitive world of computer software, Microsoft has been the biggest giant. Despite its superiority in the software market, there are still certain niches that Microsoft doesn’t have total control over and are populated by some of the smaller market players. One of these is held by Adobe and its flash player.

Microsoft has now begun to threaten Adobe and its flash player with the new introduction to its software arsenal; Silverlight. Although silverlight has been in development since 2006, it has only been previewed and released to the public within the last year. Microsoft has even faced a lot of criticism for not sticking to the standard and building their own methodology in silverlight. Despite its detractors, silverlight is probably going to become popular, due in part by its inevitable inclusion into future releases of Windows and Internet Explorer. Another excellent aspect of Silverlight is the fact that it is also included in the .Net family and can be coded with any of the programming languages that are included with it.

Another good aspect of Silverlight is the fact that it can utilize AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) to create content that are even more dynamic than what is normally expected of an animation. Silverlight can request for data using AJAX even after it has fully loaded. Coupled with the excellent graphical controls, Silverlight could provide a seamless interface for most data driven transactions that up to now are still mostly in HTML or other related software.

Silverlight is said to be compatible to all Windows operating system that are running their latest Internet Explorer software. It is also compatible with OS X, the operating system of Apple deployed in their Macs. And in a move that determines how much Microsoft wants Silverlight to succeed, Microsoft has partnered with Novell to create a version that is compatible with Linux named Moonlight. Even in the mobile industry, Microsoft is set to challenge Adobe with its forthcoming release of Silverlight for its own Windows Mobile 6 and even the Symbian platforms.

Despite coming under fire for its seemingly underhanded tactics in not following industry standards, Microsoft has posed Silverlight to be a strong market player. With its very wide deployment targets and support for technologies like AJAX that extends its capability even further than its established competitors, Silverlight might just prove be a solid piece of software and live up to its hype.

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