32-bit and 64-bit Silverlight 5 Coming

The advent of the next major iteration of Silverlight will be synonymous with the launch of a full 64-bit version of the technology’s runtime, in addition to the 32-bit release, according to Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Platform.

Guthrie announced on December 2nd that Microsoft is hard at work building the next generation of its Flash alternative, and that just like Adobe it is focusing on ensuring the 64-bit flavor browsers will be able to run Silverlight.

It was with the launch of the “Square” preview of Flash Player in mid-September 2010, released in tandem with Internet Explorer 9 Beta, that Adobe unveiled the introduction of native x64 support for the plug-in.

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At a Silverlight event today, Microsoft gave a first look at the next version of the company's development platform. Silverlight 5 will be a more complete, more capable development platform, and it should be a faster one, too, with hardware acceleration of various features. What the announcement didn't do is clarify Microsoft's future development direction any better.

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