As the first of my interviews from PDC, I noticed that Loic Le Muer was quick to familiarize himself with me as a part of the interview. This fact coupled with his persistent praise for the Seesmic devs who worked on Seesmic for Windows have led me to believe that Seesmic might actually be one of the better small software companies in existence.

Loic demonstrated Seesmic for Windows at PDC 2009 during Tuesday’s keynote. The obvious difference between Seesmic for Windows and Seesmic Desktop (the AIR version) is that the Windows client is native and written on top of the .net CLR. The plus sides to this include far better performance figures, a more Windows-integrated UI, and a lower tendency to leak handles (and fill my ram). The only downside to this is that it’s Windows-only… well, until you realize that moving .net code from a Windows native environment to Silverlight is actually not nearly as bad as writing another app from scratch.

My interview with Loic takes a browse through Seesmic for Windows v. Seesmic Desktop. I also decided to run through Silverlight Seesmic with Loic during our quick block of time, and while the Silverlight version still requires some polish before going live, the Windows preview version is solid enough for everyone to take a look.

Both parts of the interview can be found below the read link. Blame YouTube for forcing me to split a 13 minute video.
My thanks goes to Andrew Lyle from neowin for manning the camera.

The interview with Dan Polivy from PDC 2008 can be found here.

• Anyone on Silverlight 1 or Silverlight 2 Beta will be automatically upgraded to Silverlight 2.0 (as written in the EULA). I asked Scott if Windows Server Update Services can block Silverlight from auto-upgrading on a business network. Answer: Yes.
• Changes from RC0 are limited in scope, basically bug fixes and minor UI tweaks to some of the controls.
• Content can be DRM’d, which makes sense given Blockbuster’s willingness to embrace Silverlight as a platform.
• Eclipse IDE support!

To download Silverlight 2, simply head here. Catch more tidbits of Silverlight 2 goodness after the break.

Usage and Deployment Statistics:

• One in Four customers, according to Microsoft, have access to a machine with Silverlight.
• NBCOlympics.com boosted United States Silverlight deployment by 30%.
• Silverlight 1 was used primarily to seed adoption by deploying a plugin with (comparatively) basic media support. Silverlight 2 will be deployed on top of these guys to bring the seeds up to date.
• Silverlight 2.0 will be roughly the same size as previous beta builds: 4.5MB, roughly a 10 second install time on a clean machine.

Third Party Statistics and Notes:

• NBCOlympics.com had 70 million viewers in two weeks. Video quality was at 1.5MBit/s
• Average time spent per user on NBCOlympics.com: 27 minutes, which is nuts!
• Companies which have Silverlight 2 plans today or will have something soon: CBS College Sports Network, Hard Rock Cafe, Toyota, AOL Mail Live (as discussed at MIX), Yahoo Japan, Blockbuster
• Example: Blockbuster’s implementation would be used for buying/renting films.

Expansion:

• Google Chrome deployment was a pain on earlier releases. The most recent Chrome dev release for Windows has the blocking issue fixed, so Silverlight should now work with Chrome without any issues. Thanks, Google!
• Apple does not want any browser extensions (e.g. Flash, Silverlight) on the iPhone at this time. Surprise!
• Android, on the other hand, is a route which Microsoft is actively investigating. Given Android’s open nature, expect a release here at some point.
• No word on whether Silverlight will come bundled with Windows 7 (or if that’s even legal, for that matter). More at PDC.
• Symbian has Silverlight on it thanks to an agreement between Nokia and Microsoft. This was announced back at MIX but will likely be reinforced as Microsoft tries to broaden Silverlight’s exposure to more platforms.
• Scott mentioned private testing with other manufacturers, and while he declined to mention any besides Nokia, Apple, and the Android OS teams, his “private testing” note fits well with what I’ve heard from sources regarding discussions between RIM and Microsoft for Silverlight integration on the next series of smartphones after the current (9000) series. This is separate from any rumored RIM/Microsoft buyout plans, of which I’ve got no word.

Development Support and Technical Data:

• Eclipse! http://www.eclipse4sl.org/
• Visual Studio support will be there, both via Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition.
• Expression Studio 2 will also have full Silverlight 2 development support via service pack later this month.
• “Powerful” built-in controls:  DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls, Deep View, etc.
• The usual cross-platform support will still exist on Mac, Windows, and Linux (via Moonlight)
• .NET framework language support will be boosted to a ridiculous level: Examples: Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby.
• Silverlight 2 will have its own in-house .NET framework, so .NET won’t be required on the machine beforehand. This is part of the 4.5MB download.
• DRM support.
• Advertiser support, data reporting, SEO, and the like.
• Full Screen keyboard usage is better than before but still limited in an effort to block spoofing attacks. Keys popular for gaming will be allowed, but the full gamut of keyboard strokes will not be accessible in full-screen mode.

Remember to download Silverlight 2 on October 14 if you don’t already have a previous version of Silverlight installed.