Monday, 17 January 2005

Microsoft's Avalon Consumer Technical Preview

Microsoft has made public a consumer technical preview of its Avalon graphics subsystem. Avalon is a unified presentation subsystem for Windows that is scheduled for release sometime in 2006. Although originally intended to be exclusive to Longhorn, Avalon will now ship as an add-on to Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and other future Windows releases. Avalon contains a new markup language based on XML -- dubbed "XAML" -- that can be used to create Avalon interfaces. Microsoft is rumoured to be developing a front-end programming tool that automates XAML application building code-named Sparkle. Sparkle is a potential competitor to Macromedia's Flash because Microsoft is bringing together its application and development model. The Avalon Consumer Technical Preview is available for public download via FileForum.