HTML 5 in Internet Explorer may mean Microsoft is rejoined the league of civilized nations on browsers, but another Microsoft technology remains under lock and key more firmly than ever.
Microsoft’s Silverlight media player has, with version 4 due next month, gone from being closed source but able to work on other platforms – the Mac – to being increasingly tied to Windows.
An up-coming feature called COM Automation has been introduced that potential lets content in Silverlight and Silverlight applications work with documents in Microsoft’s Office stored on a PC. Also, COM Automation could access other system capabilities like a USB security card reader.
COM is a Microsoft architecture, not found on the Mac, so this means Silverlight is beginning to be built by Microsoft to give Windows a leg up over the competition. (more…)