Back near the start of 2008, it was announced by the Redmond software-giant Microsoft and Finnish communications company Nokia that the Silverlight platform would be coming to Symbian OS phones. Fast forward to 2010, and there's still no sign of that happening – until now. Two days ago, Microsoft posted the Silverlight for Symbian beta, including the developer tools, which were both taken down soon after.

Mar 30, 2021 Microsoft advised everyone to stop using Silverlight entirely in 2015, signaling that support for the software would eventually cease. By 2018, less than 0.1% of all websites used Silverlight. Mar 22, 2016 Edge is a new browser. They didn't so much decide to remove Silverlight support as not include it in the first place. Amongst other aspects of this, SL relies on ActiveX technology and MS took the decision not to provide ActiveX capability in Edge.

Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet noted down the description from the beta, listed here: 'The installable executable enables users to run Silverlight applications on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform.' The developer tools read, 'The installable executable file enables users to run Silverlight on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform. The executable file includes the Silverlight runtime for the Nokia S60 5th Edition devices, the Silverlight runtime for the Nokia S60 5th Edition emulator, sample applications, and developer documentation.' Microsoft is hosting its annual Mix Web conference beginning in a few days, so it's very likely that the beta will be made available then, as the SDK seems to be ready for a beta release (judging by the brief leak two days ago).

Microsoft Edge Silverlight Support

If you're a Windows developer, be sure to keep an eye out on the announcements as they come next week, especially if you deal with Silverlight and/or Symbian. Additionally, Microsoft may also issue an update on its plans for Silverlight on Google's Android platform, though there's a good chance they may remain silent on the issue. Neowin will be covering any major announcements, as per usual.