Microsoft has released a alpha version of their Silverlight Addin for Visual Studio “Orcas” (beta1). As someone who isn’t on the “bleeding edge” of the latest web technologies, I like to see how they do after the hype has worn off before trying them out, I don’t know what Microsoft plans for this Addin in regards to price.

Best case scenario for developers is that Microsoft releases this Addin for free and also for the free Express editions of Visual Studio. This would be the best scenario if Microsoft wants to quickly gain some ground on Flash, which charges for it’s development environment.

I gave up years ago trying to understand some of the, seemingly foolish, business and PR decisions Microsoft has made over the years, so nobody really knows for sure how this will turn out, unless of course it is in the release notes I was too lazy to read.

Cheers