Silverlight Scores Again: NBCU Taps Microsoft For 2010 Olympics Coverage
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
Major League Baseball's digital unit may have dropped Microsoft's Silverlight as its online video platform, but Silverlight serves NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) just fine. In fact, it performed so well during NBCU's online coverage of the Beijing Olympics, that NBCU has re-upped with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) for the 2010 Vancouver Games.
The two companies will run "NBCOlympics.com on MSN" again, complete with live and on-demand event coverage in both standard and HD, packaged clips and interviews, stats and athlete bios. Olympics content will also be syndicated across the MSN Network, including on MSN.com and MSN Video.
It's another sports coup for Microsoft's Silverlight, following news that CBSSports.com would use the video platform to power HD content for March Madnesssince Silverlight is up against the de facto standard of *Adobe* Flash. (Silverlight only launched in 2007, and an estimated 76 percent of online broadcasters were already using Flash then, a number that's likely higher now).
By Tameka Kee