Silverlight 2 is to launch tomorrow, bringing the .NET framework to the browser and a much improved feature-set over its initial release. Developers can now write Silverlight applications using any .NET language (including VB, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby), thanks to the inclusion of a stripped down version of the .NET framework. Also included are a much wider range of built-in controls including data grids and list boxes, and rich networking support including REST, WS*/SOAP and raw socket support.

The Silverlight runtime will be made available tomorrow (14 Oct) at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight. Microsoft claims Silverlight is now installed by 1 in 4 consumers, with penetration reaching 50% in some countries. Much of this will have been due to the extensive Olympics coverage on the NBC olypmics site, reaching over 50 million unique visitors.

As part of the release, Microsoft also announced a project for implementing advanced Silverlight support within the open-source Eclipse IDE, expected to be feature-complete by December this year. Support has also been included in Visual Web Developer, their own free cut-down version of Visual Studio.