HP search deal Microsoft's Silverlight Trojan horse?

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 04 June 2008 05:29

Opinion and Analysis

But if a PC vendor chooses to include Silverlight, that would be a different matter.

"This agreement provides HP customers with an outstanding search product in Live Search, as well as a user-friendly, fully customizable way to access their favorite online services," said Ulf Claesson, vice president of Worldwide Attach at HP.

It just happens to be built by Microsoft, using Silverlight to deliver an "exceptional user experience".

Since HP is the number two PC vendor in the US and number one worldwide according to Gartner,  it's not hard to see why Microsoft has teamed with the company for this project, especially as US market leader Dell has been cutting back on preinstalled software.

The more PCs there are with Silverlight installed, the more attractive the technology becomes to web designers and programmers. The more people there are developing with Silverlight, the more tools Microsoft sells.