At TechEd Bill Gates said that the second beta of Silverlight 2 will be available for download at the end of the week with a Go Live license. The Go Live license is similar to the one that was used late in the beta process for Silverlight 1 and it allows developers to roll out applications to production but with limited support from Microsoft.
LINK: http://www.microsoft.com/techedonline/default.aspx
So on to the details of the fun stuff that's brand new in Beta 2:
- UI Framework - Beta 2
- Rich Controls - Beta 2
- Networking Support - Beta 2
- Rich Base Class Library - Beta 2
- Deep Zoom - Beta 2
more you can read on http://scarynoises.com/blog/archives/2008/06/silverlight_get.html
The final version of Silverlight 2.0, which will largely compete with Adobe Flash, isn't due until later this year. But interest has been high enough that Microsoft has introduced a "Go Live" license for it, which means that Microsoft will now fully support Silverlight apps. NBC will roll out a vast Silverlight-based Olympics Web site before the plug-in's final release, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft plans to release new test versions of its Expression Blend user interface design software and a Silverlight development plug-in for Visual Studio 2008. A second test version of Internet Explorer 8 is due in August, and the final release of Microsoft's Sync Framework (plus a beta of a mobile version) is due in the third quarter. The Sync Framework allows developers to create Web applications that can allow for offline data access or synchronize data across multiple locations.