Yesterday Steven Sinofsky presented Windows 8 from a developer’s perspective. He emphasized that Windows 8 has a brand new API, that it enables native application development in multiple languages, and that markup is a significant component of the rendering engine. In so doing, he mentioned that all of our Silverlight skills transfer to the new operating system. He explicitly did not say that Windows 8 is running Silverlight. This speaks to the branding that Microsoft has developed around Windows and .NET.

In 2007, Microsoft released .NET 3.0. Despite it’s major version number, it was not a new version of the .NET runtime. Rather, it was four new libraries running on top of .NET 2.0: Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows CardSpace, and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Not .NET Presentation Foundation – Windows.

In 2008, Silverlight 2.0 took the .NET Framework and WPF outside of the Windows platform. With this release, applications written with XAML and C# or VB ran in the browser on Windows and the Mac. Later releases would take those applications out of the browser. Silverlight was originally intended as a bridge to take Microsoft technology across all platforms. But then the strategy around Silverlight shifted.

In the first Windows 8 video, Sinofsky emphasized that Windows apps could be written in HTML 5 and JavaScript. He made no mention of Silverlight. This worried the Silverlight community, reigniting fears that Silverlight was dead. Yesterday’s keynote cleared things up a bit. Windows 8 apps will be written primarily in four languages: C#, VB, C++, and JavaScript. The markup will be based on XAML when C#, VB, or C++ is employed, or on HTML 5 when JavaScript is employed. This is good news for Silverlight developers, because their skills are still of value.

This is also a good strategy for Microsoft. Before, Microsoft was attempting to build the cross-platform bridge. They faced severe push-back from other platform vendors, particularly Apple. Sure, Silverlight worked on the Mac, but Microsoft was forbidden from porting it to the iPhone and iPad. So instead of Microsoft bridging out, they are letting the industry build bridges into Windows. Let HTML 5 and JavaScript be the cross-platform markup and programming language. XAML and C#/VB will be first-class Microsoft tools.

What is telling is the words that Sinofsky used on his architecture slide.

• WinRT – Not the .NET Framework
• C# and VB – Not .NET
• XAML – Not Silverlight

WPF is not dead. Silverlight is not dead. The components that made them successful are now core components of Windows. XAML has always been a Windows technology. Sinofsky has just pulled it back into the fold.