What does it take to host Silverlight content on a site? Why would I want to publish Silverlight content on my website?

Well, to host Silverlight content on a website that runs Apache is not the same as running .NET content on IIS. Its kinda obvious that .NET content cannot and will not run under Apache. Remember though that Silverlight is a plugin, the same as Flash, and you are simply pointing to a file (XAP) that executes on the client side. Silverlight is a client side technology if you really think about it. I have in the week for instance, experienced that content will not immediately update on the client side even if you updated it on the server side.

It is thus possible to run Silverlight content on Apache, as this simple HTML document shows. It however seems that running Silverlight in WordPress requires an iframe:

Why would I want to run Silverlight on Apache? There are many reasons I can think of and the list may grow or shrink depending on what I think is relevant for me, but here are some reasons:

• I can keep my C# skills and keep using Visual Studio. Why would I want to give up using one of the best and most powerful IDE’s in the world.
• Silverlight is a genuine Flash alternative and because it integrates so beautifully with Visual Studio and C# I can truly start developing great rich internet applications