
Closer to JAVA than FLASH
"However, it is application development, rather than video streaming or web site decoration, which is its greatest strength."
It seems then that Silverlight is closer to the Java programming language than Adobe's Flah plug-in. However, the main issue remains; both Flash and Java are totally cross-platform, whereas Silverlight isn't.
I believe we will see no significant numers of Silverlight users, unless it becomes truly cross-platform.