Silverlight is a powerful development platform introduced by Microsoft for the creation of rich media applications for the web, desktop, and mobile devices. It is compatible with multiple web browsers used on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.

The technology:

Microsoft's entry into the sphere of rich internet applications reflects the company's desire to extend the reach of their .NET framework. Going beyond the traditional HTTP/HTML limitations, this technology uses XAML and .NET framework to write Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications. It can be used with the JavaScript and can also work within AJAX-enabled web pages.

The applicability:

All kinds of companies are using Silverlight to build interactive applications and deliver flawless streaming media to audiences on all types of screens wherever the web works. It provides high resolution images, great pixel shade effects, videos, 3D graphics, animations, rich internet application productivity, web designing, 60+ controls with source code, and smooth streaming. All its application processing takes place on the client machine that enhances the web experience for the client and decreases server resource utilization.

Well, it supports the usual array of Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio, and MP3 content without requiring Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player ActiveX control, or even Windows Media browser plug-ins. Thus, we get an advanced internet multimedia center where there is no need to download different plug-ins for the same application.

The benefits:

With Silverlight 4, the latest version, the users are offered many improved or new functionalities like:

• Enhanced animation effects
• Enhanced data binding support
• Rich internet application (RIA) services
• Support for Google Chrome browser
• Microphone and web cam support
• Support for printing
• New and enhanced controls such as a RichTextBox
• New hosted browser support to render HTML inside Silverlight
• Clipboard and drag and drop support
• Deep zoom performance enhancements
• Out-of-browser support features like full keyboard access while running in full-screen mode and programmatic access to the local document folder of a user.

Progress path:

Though newer than its contemporary technologies Adobe Flash/Flex and AJAX, Silverlight promises to serve a good future to internet applications.

The world of Internet Applications has got a new kid in the town named "RIA." That stands for Rich Internet Applications. RIAs are browser-based applications that attain the experience of desktop applications with little server-side interaction. With the limitations of browser-based applications a thing of past tense, you can now expect to see some refreshing RIAs not only on websites but also other digital devices such as phones, cameras, and televisions.

Traditional web applications vs. RIAs

Traditional web applications, built on a client/server architecture, had all the heavy lifting done on the server side, browser was rendered only the static data. The obvious limitations of this architecture were mainly concerned with performance, browser screen delay in particular, where there was a waiting for the browser to refresh and draw a page with passing information to and fro between the server and client-side browser.

With the introduction of RIAs, we get a client-side engine where execution is performed locally without a need for software installation or updates. Thus, pages don’t require to refresh as data transfer to and fro the server is not needed. RIA’s own framework within the browser environment has opened the door for client-side application features that were not previously available.

The market of RIAs is flourishing now for about half a decade as many big-time players have jumped into it, including but not limited to Microsoft SilverLight, Adobe Flex & AIR, AJAX, WPF, OpenLazlo Framework, and Google Web Toolkit.

How RIAs make sense to you?

RIAs are cool! Their advent is a major technological breakthrough. You, more importantly your customers, are missing out one of the newest and richest media experiences if you don't have it.

Not limited by the browser language, HTML applications of RIA are faster and richer. RIA incorporated websites are enabled to mix dynamically sourced data, audio, video, and other imageries. As rich a user interface that it has, think of it like Flash on steroids with exemplary dynamic data presentation based on user interactivity with any operating system and not needing a plug-in.

And guess what more! For this, you get most of the developer tools and platforms delivered open source.

Challenges!

Native RIA incapabilities lie in its offline presentation ability and with web analytics adequately addressing the unique features of RIAs.

With that said, if heavy-hitting companies like Microsoft, Google, and Adobe have recognized the power in RIA tools and have sensed their ability to deliver a greatly enhanced online experience that’s smartly delivered, there’s definitely something special about it!

The second half of the 20th century and the first decade of 21st century has witnessed some of the greatest landmarks of technology era. Personal computers came, then came the laptops and mobiles. The lighter and handier technology became, more it was preferred. That’s what is behind the success of mobile phones. With the first mobile phone call of Dr. Martin Cooper in 1973, the inventor of the mobile phones, communication technology has just not looked back and we’ve constantly gotten served up with the new and better models of mobile communication. Adding sophistication to communication are the industry leaders – Nokia, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone etc.

With an immense user base of mobiles that’s scaling up by leaps and bounds, the web technology has seen a great potential in mobiles. Earlier websites made for the desktops don’t have compatibility for the mobiles due to technical differences such as small screen etc., but they now need to be made mobile compatible if the companies want their branding, advertising, and marketing to reach maximum number of web users. With an estimate of about 5.8 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by 2013 and another that mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide by 2013, it’s easy to develop an outlook as to why all the current desktop/laptop compatible websites should have their mobile versions. Web development companies have to come into vigorous action and develop existing and new websites for mobile compatibility.

The mobile application development market is also blooming as the sales of mobiles and their more sophisticated editions, the smartphones, are skyrocketing. Application development companies can make apps for business promotions, business processes, or just entertainment that directly hit the target audience. It’s forecasted that the worldwide downloads in mobile applications stores will surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. With the growing popularity of smartphones such as iPhone and its likes and app stores becoming the focus for several players in the value chain, more consumers will experiment with application downloads. Web application development companies, again, have a big battle there with the challenge of who’s going to serve the best to the prospering app market.

So, the mobile development industry is heading where it should be. There’s no taking rest for the mobile website and mobile application development companies until mobiles capture the whole of the web for business and personal interests and we say that anything is possible on mobile.

In the modern era, businesses can’t have a competitive edge if they run without the most up-to-date technologies. The more a business simplifies its operations the smoother it becomes. Business application development is devoted to this purpose. It serves you with incredible line-of-business applications streamlining your operational activities.

While corporates are in need of rich internet applications to run a whole empire, small entrepreneurs can go for the really essential ones. Drastic changes keep coming in IT technology with rapid advancement in technology. The earlier used bulky and heavy-in-cost customized business systems have to give way to the new ones. Both web and mobile based business applications can have their hand in present-age businesses.

Web development is a potential arena where robust websites having multitier web applications that can be used for ecommerce businesses on platforms such as Java, ASP.net, PHP, Perl, Ruby on Rails, and MySQL. The use of these web programming languages or web software is spreading fast as more and more businesses are looking up to Internet as a faster, convenient, and more economical medium than other systems. There’s one thing to enjoy about online business applications and that’s publicly available information on developing, using, and maintaining the software. Web mailing, social networking, online word processors and spreadsheet software etc. go hand in hand with web programming for the businesses to grow stronger. A professional web development company gets you the benefit of several web tools to enhance your business. There are front-office and back-office operations to be taken care of involving many different layers of software. Whether business process automation or other key components of a business related to data management or marketing/networking, eBusinesses find a solution in enterprise portals. Instant messaging, schedulers, and data management applications of smartphones, too, are climbing up in the popularity graph.

If you care enough for your business, you have to enrich it with end-to-end business solutions from business application domain. A good business application development company would really be excited to serve you unique ways to handle your business.

Think of web applications and first comes business in our minds. But, what flashes in our minds first with the term “mobile applications”? It’s of course “fun and gaming.” Let’s find out in the context of FIFA World Cup 2010 how life has changed with smartphones and mobile application development. With footballers having their wars, mobile software developers had their World Cup too! This one of the biggest sporting event had, for the first time, mobile app developers shower a multitude of World Cup offerings to the soccer fans. Your smartphone could let you follow your favorite game anywhere, anytime with apps designed for the World Cup score alerts, news, play-by-play updates, live commentary, in game video highlights, players’ profiles, virtual soccer gaming, and so on. That being said, mobile application boom in business has just sprouted up and is gaining ground apace. While using mobile applications of games and entertainment keeps you in a herd, using business applications keeps you just in a small pool.

It’s established that the sphere of fun and information-focused content quintessentially constitutes a large portion of the mobile ecosystem. How business relates to it is like either you make it your business or get help in your business from it. Mobile app development is taking place at a phenomenal rate, and as a latest report predicts global smartphone app download market to reach a staggering 15 billion USD by 2013, this revenue surge has got the nerves up for the opportunists to make hay while the sun shines. While Apple iPhone’s app market has stolen the march, other fiercely competing mobile operating systems like Google Android and Symbian, RIM’s BlackBerry, and Microsoft Windows Mobile have got on the bandwagon and heated up the market! Developers are uprising and the applications are getting on becoming richer and richer!

From a business perspective, the mobile applications have both back-end support and high-end corporate solutions to offer. On one hand, mobile websites are new revenue channels for the businesses, and on the other, mobile apps can take care of various aspects of your business from advertising, sponsoring, brand strengthening to serving important functionalities like business tracking, keeping important information close at hand like business contacts or weather conditions for your travel needs, accessing business intelligence reports, getting sales quotes or real-time stock market quotes, and so on. Your business sense was never smarter than this. You may be wondering how easy and fast it is to handle hefty business processes with this small, handy techno-device.

Today, if you think business with mobile apps, you are in a small but cool group. But, with the speed at which mobile apps are catching businesses, tomorrow will be the day when you are nowhere in race with the leaders if your business makes no sense with mobile apps.