Why Micro$oft is pushing Silverlight
Microsoft lost the media player wars the day Adobe made Flash compatible with movies. It is no coincidence that soon after that, Microsoft decide to make Silverlight. And if Microsoft wins that (which I doubt they will, Flash is just too entrenched), expect to see this: "We're sorry, future versions of Silverlight aren't compatible with Mac or Firefox or any browser except Internet Explorer. So if you want to view this content, switch to Internet Explorer. Oh, by the way, we've pulled all downloads of Silverlight that are compatible with those products."
Microsoft can't stand to be second in anything. When you do everything, you do nothing well.