Do you think Silverlight is enterprise ready? Any stats on platform penetration? Any F500 comps investing seriously in Silverlight?

Question

We need some support statistics if available, to decide the future of few major investments we are planning on top of Silverlight platform.

According to RiaStats http://riastats.com/ - Silverlight penetration rate was around 20% in March 2009, and now it is around 50%. In US, presently it is ~38%

Looking for answers with some stats/figures for these questions

• Do you have any further details about platform penetration, growth rate etc?
• Do you think Silverlight is enterprise ready?
• What are the major projects from fortune 500 companies that are already using Silverlight?

Note: I think it'll be interesting to keep an eye onthe stats from Riastats.com - Olympics will certainly increase SL penetration.

Answer 1

My company is producing the next major release of our primary product in Silverlight. We sell into the F500 in the US and to market-leading companies in Europe, and they are asking for browser-based apps, primarily to reduce support costs. Nobody is blinking when we say 'Silverlight'.

One data point for Qs 2 &3.

Answer 2

ITV (the largest commercial broadcaster here in the UK) were one of the flagship early adopters of Silverlight, but dumped it in favour of Flash last year.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/15/itv_flash/

That's the only major Silverlight project I've seen so I'd guess it's not ready for public internet use yet.

I'm in the UK though, so it could be that more US-focused companies are picking it up more. I think there are some US sports websites using it to stream video.

EDIT: apparently MLB.com was the largest Silverlight user at one point but they have also moved back to flash now (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-285784.html). Netflix would seem to be the largest now (excepting the olympics, which is seasonal obviously)

Answer 3

Netflix's watch-it-now player uses SilverLight