Microsoft will soon have an answer to the popular Adobe Flash Player: its own plug-in called Microsoft Silverlight. Like Flash, Silverlight plays media files and displays interactive Web applications. And it works on Windows, Mac and in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. It will have an accompanying development tool for developers and designers, just like Flash. The targeted audience for the release is media and entertainment companies. Partners who have already shown interest in using the software include Major League Baseball and Netflix. The beta will be released later this month at the Mix07 conference for designers and Web developers, but only time will tell if Silverlight will shine.