Microsoft is nearing the finish line with the 2.0 releases of both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of its Silverlight competitor to Adobe Flash.

Late last week, Microsoft released the first public Release Candidate (RC) test builds of Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and Mac OS X. The new RC 0 build is not designed for end users; it is aimed specifically at developers. As explained on the official Silverlight site:

“Silverlight 2 Release Candidate 0 (Silverlight 2 RC0) is now available to developers for testing purposes and to help prepare your Silverlight 2 Beta 2 applications for the release of Silverlight 2.”

I’m hearing that Microsoft is shooting to release to the Web the final Windows and Mac versions of Silverlight 2.0 around the first week or so of October. Microsoft had been shooting to deliver the final Silverlight 2.0 release this past summer, according to a Microsoft blogger who published the internal Silverlight timetable to his blog.

Source- blogs.zdnet.com