At the center stage of the annual MIX 2009 developer and designer conference, Microsoft throws Silverlight 3 at Adobe which transfers the RIA giants battle to the next level. Microsoft claimed that the Silverlight 3 player will be no more than 4.4MB.
Among the new features of Silverlight 3 is the ability to tap a computer's graphics processor to offer hardware acceleration of the video (both PC and Mac). The company is expected to make the beta version of Silverlight 3 available later on Wednesday, with some pieces of the product already having made their way onto the Web. (Update: Microsoft has officially announced the beta of Silverlight 3.)
It is known that Flash Player has much higher penetration rate than Silverlight. However, it looks like the Microsoft is gaining more than Adobe in the RIA battle. It looks like only time can tell who will eventually prevail.