February 2nd, 2010

What's new in Windows Mobile 6.5.3

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:54 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Channel, Corporate strategy, Internet Explorer, Windows Mobile

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications, Handhelds, Wireless And Mobility, Software, Hardware, Mary Jo Foley

A few blogs noted on February 2 that Sony Ericsson has a new Windows Mobile phone out that’s running the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 operating system.

What’s new in 6.5.3? This looks like the long-rumored update to Windows Mobile that provides support for capacitive-screen phones. It also provides some browser-speed tweaks.

I asked Microsoft for a feature list for 6.5.3 and was provided with the following:

Ease of Use features

* Capacitive touchscreen support
* Platform to enable multitouch
* Touch controls throughout system (no need for stylus)
* Consistent Navigation
* Horizontal scroll bar replaces tabs (think settings>system>about
screen)
* Magnifier brings touch support to legacy applications
* Simplified out-of-box experience with fewer steps
* Drag and drop icons on Start Screen

IE Browser Performance

* Page load time decreased
* Memory management improved
* Pan & flick gestures smoothed
* Zoom & rotation speed increased

Quality and Customer Satisfaction features

* Updated runtime tools (.NET CF 3.5, SQL CE 3.1)
* Arabic read/write document support
* Watson (error reporting) improvements and bug fixes

Does this mean there isn’t a Windows Mobile 6.6 or 6.7 waiting in the wings for a Barcelona Mobile World Congress unveiling? (In other words, is 6.5.3 what tipsters meant when they were talking 6.6/6.7?) Guess we’ll see in two more weeks….

January 21st, 2010

Microsoft set to release critical IE patch today

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:53 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, Security

Tags: Vulnerability, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Attack, Web Browsers, Blogging, Security, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is issuing on January 21 an out-of-band (meaning, not tied to a regular Patch Tuesday) fix for the Internet Explorer security breach that affected Google and other companies in China. Microsoft plans to make the fix, designated as “critical,” available as close to 10 a.m. PST as possible, officials said.

Update (9 a.m. PT): The patch is out. Steven Bink of Bink.nu fame, has links to all the various versions available for download.

While Microsoft officials say the “only successful attacks” have been against customers running IE6, the fix also applies to IE7 and IE8.

Here’s the official word, via a Microsoft spokesperson:

“(W)e will be releasing MS10-002  (on) January 21, 2010. We are planning to release the update as close to 10:00 a.m. PST as possible. This is a standard cumulative update, accelerated from our regularly scheduled February release, for Internet Explorer with an aggregate severity rating of Critical. It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and a small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities. Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicized. We recommend that customers install the update as soon as it is available. For customers using automatic updates, this update will automatically be applied once it is released.”

Microsoft also updated Security Advisory 979352 to include information about additional products that may be affected by this vulnerability and guidance related to reports of proof of concept (POC) code that bypasses Data Encryption Protection (DEP), the spokesperson said.

My blogging colleagues Ed Bott and Ryan Naraine have been covering this issue in more depth over the past few days, for those who want more information and background.

January 19th, 2010

Microsoft's compatibility conundrum: When is it wrong to do the 'right' thing?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:54 am

Categories: App Compatibility, Apple, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Multicore/distributed computing, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows client, Zune

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., WM7, Midori Team, Microsoft Windows, Web Browsers, Mobile Operating Systems

Over the past couple of days, on a couple of different fronts, Microsoft watchers have been musing about compatibility — or, to be more precise, backward compatibility.

In the case of Windows Mobile (WM) — where rumors about WM7 are ramping up at an almost iSlate-like pace — folks are wondering about reports that WM7 might not be backward-compatible with Windows Mobile 6.X. Meanwhile, on the Internet Explorer side of the house, , an exploit in IE 6 that affected Google in China has led a number of company watchers to wonder why Microsoft is continuing to support IE 6. Why not drop backward compatibility so as to force IE stalwarts to move to IE7 or IE8?

On the WM front, the issue of backward compatibility is less pressing than it is on the IE/Windows one. Microsoft has broken compatibility in the past when releasing new WM versions running on phones with different processors. While there is some indeterminate number of custom Windows Mobile apps out there which may have been written for WM6.X, there still aren’t more than a few hundred commercial WM apps in the Microsoft Marketplace for Mobile store. And you can be sure Microsoft will be prompt in getting its own apps (Office Mobile 2010, Silverlight, Windows Live, Bing, Zune, etc.) out for WM7.

The stakes are higher in Windows than Windows Mobile. Microsoft officials have insisted over the years that one of Microsoft’s biggest strengths is its commitment to providing backward compatibility. With more than 1 billion Windows users out there, Microsoft officials haven’t been willing (so far, at least) to create a new, smaller, less convoluted version of an operating system without thinking about how to continue to support the majority of existing apps and customers.

That “strength” also has become a great weakness for Microsoft, however.

Remember this August 2009 blog post from IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch, where he explained why Microsoft wasn’t dropping IE6 support? Even though doing so would make life a lot simpler for developers who are tired of having to create different versions of their apps/services not just for browsers from different vendors, but for different versions of IE, Microsoft was not going to do it. Hachamovitch attributed the decision to a number of factors, including the fact that some IT departments are lacking the money to shell out for the latest hardware/software, as well as the existence of custom internal apps that require IE6.

(It’s still unclear exactly what the IE6/XP connection to Google is/was. Google hasn’t explained how it was hacked, though there are plenty of rumors about that, too.)

Microsoft officials know IE6 running on older versions of Windows is a security nightmare. But they still decided to stand by the company’s commitment to support IE6 on XP for the full lifecycle of those products. (In the case of IE6 on XP, I *think* that means Microsoft’s support will continue until support for XP SP3 ends, which seems to look like some time in 2010. If anyone has any better luck deciphering the many support caveats and can come up with a more accurate date, let me know.)

Update: Here’s the good news/bad news (depending on how you look at it): Microsoft officials say support doesn’t end for IE 6 on XP SP3 until April 8, 2014. So this IE6 backward-compat debate is going to drag on for quite a while….

Back to Microsoft’s conundrum. At some point, in order to truly advance IE and make it more standards-compliant, I’d assume Microsoft is going to have to drop IE6 compatibility. And in order to make any real changes in Windows, in terms of size, performance and complexity, wouldn’t the Softies also have to cut the cord and deliver an operating system with a new kernel? Midori, the so-called “successor to Windows,” is supposedly based to some degree on the Microsoft-Research-developed Singularity microkernel. The Midori team has been known to be debating how and if Midori will be backward-compatible with Windows.

One way around backward compatibility headaches is to use virtualization. But, as one of my readers recently noted, not all apps work well in a virtual machine running virtualized drivers. So maybe a preferable solution is to support two OSes simultaneously: Both WM 6.x and WM7. Both Windows and Midori (or whatever Microsoft’s next-generation OS ends up being). But what about proprietary IE and more standards-based IE? Should Microsoft continue along that dual path here, as well?

Speaking of WM7, I don’t have much new to contribute regarding all the new rumors showing up on various blogs and Wall Street missives. I can’t help but wonder whether talk of two versions of WM7 is simply confusion over WM7 and “Pink” phones/services. As I’ve noted before, Pink was supposed to be a set of consumer services (including a Zune music service) plus a phone or phones custom-made for the teen/20-something set which would carry Microsoft branding…. So your guess is as good as mine (or any of the others out there) as to what Microsoft will share about WM7 and/or Pink in a few more weeks at the Mobile World Congress.

January 15th, 2010

ComScore: Bing market share continues to creep upward

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:13 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, Search, Security

Tags: ComScore Networks Inc., Microsoft Corp., Hacking, Security, Web Browsers, Search, Viruses And Worms, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

The comScore December market share numbers for U.S. search share are out, and Bing is continuing its slow, upward spiral.

Bing’s share is now at 10.7 percent, up from 10.3 percent in November, comScore said. Yahoo is down — to 17.3 percent in December, from 17.5 percent in November. And Google is holding its own, at 65.7 percent in December, compared to 65.6 in November.

Microsoft is continuing its push to use whatever means necessary to grow its search share. In January, company officials announced a deal with Microsoft via which HP will be making Bing the default search engine on most of its PCs. Microsoft struck a similar default-engine deal with Verizon recently, as well, also for an unspecified amount.

In search-related news this week, Microsoft officials said the company won’t be pulling out of China, unlike rival Google, which is threatening to do so because of cyberattacks. (Those attacks have been linked to  a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer, but didn’t affect Microsoft, officials said earlier this week.)

There’s still been no regulatory clearance on the Microsoft-Yahoo plan via which Microsoft will end up providing search results for many of Yahoo’s Web properties. If and when that clearance happens, Microsoft’s share will see a more significant upward bump, but with Bing’s current gains coming as a result of Yahoo’s losses, maybe less of a bump than Microsoft originally hoped.

December 16th, 2009

Microsoft's browser bundling battle is over (for this decade, at least)

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:40 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Internet Explorer, Legal, Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Web Browser, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft started this past decade in the midst of a fight over whether Internet Explorer (IE) was part of Windows (in U.S. antitrust courts in the U.S. Department of Justice vs. Microsoft case). The company ended it the same way in the European Union — but deciding this time to settle rather than fight.

On December 16, the European Commission announced it had agreed to Microsoft’s concessions in the Opera vs. Microsoft case. By agreeing to offer Windows users a ballot screen of browser choices, the Softies were able to avoid fines or other EC-imposed remedies. The outcome: European PC users running XP, Vista and/or Windows 7 will be getting ballot screens, listing a total of 12 browser choices, one of which will be IE.  (The top five — IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera — will be listed more prominently than the other seven, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.)

Here’s Microsoft’s statement and documentation outlining its browser commitments, as well as what it’s proposing to do to ease interoperability between Windows, Windows Server, SharePoint, Exchange and third-party products — another arena the EC has been investigating.

From a December 16 blog post by Mozilla Foundation Chair Mitchell Baker, it sounds like Microsoft also will be eliminating any pop-up Windows which might redirect users to IE and away from alternatives. Mozilla also was against Microsoft listing the top five ballot entries alphabetically by vendor; I’m not sure so far whether that concession ended up as part of the final settlement. Update: Yes, it looks like that concession is part of the ballot, as the browser order is being generated randomly. Here’s a sample of the final ballot screen:

Microsoft originally fought hard against the browser ballot — to the point where the company almost went so far as to create a whole new Windows 7 SKU (Windows 7E) that wouldn’t provide a way for users to get on the Internet and choose a browser. Happily, someone, somewhere at the company put the brakes on that idea before it went too far. Microsoft didn’t need a costly, drawn-out battle that might mar the reputation of Windows 7 on its hands. As hard as it might have been for executives accustomed to battling, this time Microsoft decided it was better to switch than fight.

Many readers of this blog have been vocal critics of the browser ballot. Who doesn’t know you have a choice of browsers and how to download them from the Web, many of you have asked. As I’ve said before: Tech savvy readers like yourselves know this, but many average consumers do not. They don’t know IE is a browser and many don’t know there are other choices or which companies offer them. That’s why I’ve been a fan of the idea of a browser ballot since it was first proposed. Instead of allowing Microsoft to sit on its laurels and make occasional enhancements to its browser whenever the spirit moves it, a ballot fosters more competition — and, I’d argue — better browsers from Microsoft and others.

So Microsoft’s browser-bundling troubles are over. For this decade. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft enmeshed in yet another browser-bundling suit in the coming decade, perhaps with Google as one of the behind-the-scenes instigators. That said, given that Google is bundling its own Chrome browser into its Chrome OS, it might have a pretty flimsy case….

If I were CEO Steve Ballmer, the last ten years would make me rethink whether bundling IE with Windows is worth the continued legal risks. I’d be inclined to make a browser ballot the default on Windows PCs everywhere, not just Europe. Yes, decoupling IE from Windows would be a risky strategy, given IE’s overall market share is continuing to erode (it’s at 62 percent or so in Europe, according to some figures) and with more and more developers vetoing IE because it isn’t WebKit-based and not compliant enough with emerging Web standards.

But if Microsoft really does believe IE is the fastest and most secure browser out there, why not give users a true choice?

December 3rd, 2009

Report: Final Microsoft browser ballot may include Opera-suggested modifications

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:15 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, Legal

Tags: European Commission, Opera Software ASA, Microsoft Corp., Bloomberg L.P., Web Browser, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

The seemingly never-ending antitrust trial in Europe may soon come to a close, if a new report by Bloomberg is on the money.

Bloomberg reported on December 3 that the European Commission (EC) may issue its final remedy in the browser-bundling case involving Opera Software and Microsoft by December 15. According to the Bloomberg report, which cites two unnamed sources, the browser-ballot screen — which will allow PC users in Europe to select from a variety of browsers, rather than having to figure out what alternatives to Internet Explorer (IE) are out there and how to download them — has been modified yet again. Bloomberg is reporting that the final browser-ballot screen that Microsoft will offer to Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 users will include modifications advocated by Opera. (That’s according to Opera officials quoted in the story).

Last month, just before the EC-imposed comment deadline, Opera, Google and Mozilla all weighed in with modifications they wanted to see to the latest browser-ballot proposal. Opera officials said they were opposed to the inclusion of the Microsoft logo being at the top of the ballot, fearing undue influence on users. Opera’s CEO also said he wanted to bar Microsoft from displaying a warning if and when users choose to download rival’s software. Mozilla officials said they were opposed to listing the five biggest browser vendors (by market share) in alphabetical order on the browser screen.

Opera lodged its initial browser-bundling complaint against Microsoft in December 2007. The EC has not yet said whether it intends to levy fines against Microsoft as part of this complaint or whether the browser-ballot screen remedy — which Microsoft agreed to during settlement talks with the EC — will go far enough to level the playing field in the EC’s eyes.

November 24th, 2009

Microsoft isn't the only one developing a hardware-accelerated browser

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:40 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, PDC 2009, Windows 8, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Web Browser, Hardware, Graphics, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft has shared very few details so far about Internet Explorer (IE) 9, but has said the company is planning to accelerate the performance of text and graphics rendering by taking advantage of the power of PCs’ graphics-processing unit (GPU).

Specifically, Microsoft officials said at the Professional Developers Conference last week that with IE9, it will be “moving all graphics and text rendering from the CPU (and GDI) to the graphics card using Direct2D and DirectWrite.” (Istartedsomething blogger Long Zheng posted a good write up on Microsoft’s hardware-acceleration plans for IE 9 last week, if you want more details.)

But as News.com reported on November 24, Microsoft isn’t the only browser provider planning to harness hardware acceleration. Mozilla is planning to do the same with Firefox. Firefox developers have posted a prototype demonstrating the ability to take advantage of Direct2D and DirectWrite. Google is interested in the possibilities of hardware-accelerating Chrome, as well, as News.com’s Stephen Shankland notes. Unsurprisingly, the Chrome team is keeping any plans, concrete or otherwise, close to the vest.

The Mozilla folks already are claiming they believe they’ll be first to deliver a hardware-accelerated browser. I’d bet they’re right. Microsoft officials aren’t saying when to expect a test or final version of IE 9. But if the IE team stays on the same trajectory that it followed with IE 8, I’d bet the earliest we’ll see a final version of IE9 is spring 2011. (My calculation? I’m betting Windows 8 will be released in summer/fall 2011, two years after Windows 7 was released to market, and that IE 9 — the version of the browser that will be part of Windows 8, will hit a few months earlier.)

Besides being unwilling to share dates, the Microsoft folks also are not yet talking about which versions of Windows they plan to support with IE 9. Will Microsoft still support XP machines with the next version of IE? There’s no word. My guess is IE 9 won’t work on XP. And based on the less-than-optimal way IE 8 runs on lower-memory XP machines, I’d say XP users might want to steer clear of it if it does run.

November 20th, 2009

Will Microsoft's Silverlight dampen the appeal of Google's Chrome OS?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:40 am

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Google, Internet Explorer, OEMs, Silverlight (wpf/e), Web 2.0, Windows client

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Silverlight, Operating System, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft Corp., Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Web Browsers, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems

I’m not one of those ready to write Windows an RIP certificate now that Google has finally taken (some of) the wraps off its Chrome OS. In fact, after reading through industry watchers’ questions and Google’s answers about it, I’m thinking that Chrome OS may not look quite so appealing by the time it rolls out in late 2010. Here’s why.

First, as others have noted, Google’s Chrome OS is a new windowing system layered on top of Linux that is being customized to run on netbooks. Chrome OS is an “extension to Chrome,” the company’s browser, in Google execs’ own words. Google officials are billing Chrome OS, among other things, as a way to provide Web applications with the functionality of desktop applications.

Microsoft offers an extension not just to its browser, Internet Explorer, but also to Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google’s own Chrome. That extension is Silverlight. Among other things, Silverlight is a vehicle for providing increasingly complex consumer and business apps via a browser.

At the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week, Microsoft rolled out its strategy and plans for Silverlight 4, the version of its browser plug-in that is slated for final release by mid-2010. Silverlight 4 is adding support for data binding, enterprise networking and printing, and lots of other features that are likely to make the platform more appealing to folks writing not just single-function, lightweight Web apps, but enterprise apps, as well.

Silverlight is a slimmed-down, cross-platform version of Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) programming model. Each successive iteration of Silverlight includes more and more WPF functionality (and vice versa).

Some day — Microsoft won’t say exactly when — Silverlight and WPF are going to merge into one Web programming and app delivery model that, most likely, will be known as Silverlight, Brad Becker, Director of Product Management for Microsoft’s Rich Client Platforms, told me this week at TechEd the PDC. Now that the two share the same compiled assemblies, tools and the like, that idea isn’t really so far-fetched. Until that happens, Microsoft plans to continue to offer both WPF and Silverlight, steering developers of more complex, resource-intensive applications toward WPF and Web-centric app developers toward Silverlight.

When Google execs were asked during this week’s press conference where they shared more information (but no code or systems) about the Chrome OS as to whether Silverlight would be able to work on Chrome OS, they said no comment. Maybe they see Silverlight might be more foe than friend of the Chrome OS.

I understand Silverlight is not an operating system. But some Google watchers are questioning whether the Chrome OS is actually an operating system, either, or just a glorified browser. Unlike Silverlight, which can run on a variety of PCs and soon, phones, Google OS is going to be a dedicated Linux-based netbook OS that will only work with certain predesignated peripherals. Microsoft already offers a netbook OS — Windows — which doesn’t force you to run all apps inside your browser — and which works with lots of different devices.

Would you go so far as to say the Chrome OS is going to be more of a Silverlight competitor than a WIndows one? I’m thinking right now that may seem a bit far-fetched, but as more and more apps are designed to run in Silverlight, maybe not….?

November 18th, 2009

Pivot: Microsoft's experiment to 'view the Web as a web'

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 3:10 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Internet Explorer, PDC 2009, Research

Tags: Web, Microsoft Corp., Pivot, Channel Management, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft’s Live Labs — its Research and MSN mash-up — fielded a new test project on November 18 known as “Pivot.”

Pivot (not to be confused with Microsoft’s recently renamed PowerPivot) is meant to combine search, browsing and recommendations to create a more unified Web experience, according to a description on the Live Labs Web site.

Another way the team is describing the goal of the Pivot project is to enable users to view the Web as a “web” rather than a series of isolated pages. Pivot is to allow users to visualize hidden patterns so they can “discover new insights while interacting with thousands of things at once,” according to the Web site.

Microsoft is making a limited technical preview of Pivot available to a set of invited testers. The team is counting on developers to extend the “Collections” that are central to the Pivot technology. Collections, as the Pivot team explains on the Web site, are combinations of large groups of similar items on the Web that allow users to “begin viewing the relationships between individual pieces of information in a new way.”

Collection files are CXML and Deep Zoom-formatted (DZC) images. According to the site, “depending on whether the user browses web pages or collections, the Pivot client will either use the embedded IE rendering engine (Trident) or the collection browser to display the files.”

The download site for Live Labs’ Pivot is here. Pivot “runs best” on a Windows 7 PC with Aero Glass enabled and requires .Net 3.5 Service Pack 1 and Internet Explorer 8, but it also runs on Windows Vista. It is available in English only for now.

The fine print: “Intel integrated chipsets cannot run this application and you may see a failure during install or once you are using Pivot. Other graphics cards that are not new or do not have dedicated VRAM may show unpredictable behavior including crashes, visual artifacts, or failures in installation. We may not be able to do much about these failures if you hit them with this build, but tell us about what you are seeing and we can prioritize improving this area for the future.”

Update: One of my tipsters said Pivot is the project that was formerly codenamed “Seahorse.” I’ll ask Microsoft and see if they’ll confirm or deny. Sounds like I have some very good sources, as one of my Talkback posters (Live Labs chief Gary Flake) says himself.

November 18th, 2009

Microsoft shares a few tidbits on IE9 and (lots) more on Silverlight 4

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:20 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Development tools, Internet Explorer, PDC 2009, Silverlight (wpf/e), Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft shared some information about what’s coming in Internet Explorer 9 and Silverlight 4 during its November 18 Professional Developers Conference (PDC) keynotes.

If you want to see a real example of the difference in disclosure policies between Microsoft’s Windows unit and its Developer Division, the level of information provided by execs with each division today made that quite clear.

As expected, Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinofsky shared a few tidbits about Internet Explorer (IE) 9. Sinofsky emphasized that Microsoft will continue to play up privacy, user choice and responsible development with the next IE release. But he offered no information on when the team is planning to release a test build or the final version of the browser.

Sinofsky said during the Wednesday morning keynote that the IE team is about three weeks into the IE 9 project. (I’ve been getting tips that there already is a build of the product out there that is being used inside Microsoft, but it’s not available to external testers yet.)

Sinofsky noted that Microsoft is fully aware that it needs to keep pushing on the standards front. He noted that IE 9 is currently passing 32 of 100 Acid3 tests (compared to Firefox at more than 70 and Opera at 100). He also made it clear that Microsoft is aware it needs to continue to do work to improve JavaScript performance with IE.

Sinofsky said IE 9 will support hardware-accelerated rendering and rounded borders, but didn’t say a whole lot more about it. There are a (very) few more specifics about IE 9 on the IE Team blog today.

Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for .Net, had lots more to say about Silverlight 4, the next version of Microsoft’s browser plug-in that competes with Adobe Flash.

Microsoft is making a public beta of Silverlight 4 available for download today, November 18. A single, near-final Release Candidate will follow and then the final version of Silverlight 4 will be out in the first half of 2010, according to Guthrie.

Guthrie said Silverlight 4 will be a major new release of the plug-in. He said the upcoming version will incorporate nine of the ten most requested features by developers.

Guthrie itemized and demonstrated some of the new features of Silverlight 4 — which include everything from its support for webcam and microphone access, to the ability to run Silverlight inside the Google Chrome browser. Silverlight 4 also will include full support for Visual Studio 2010, native multicast support and improved printing, networking and reporting capabilities, company officials said. Silverlight Program Manager Tim Heuer has a full list of those Silverlight 4 features on his blog.

I’m interested in hearing from anyone who manages to download Silverlight 4 (servers are crawling, I hear) about what you think of the new beta of the product. Feel free to chime in in the talkbacks….