Just when we were all pondering if the great technology behind Silverlight was going to die before it had begun, Billy Gates pulls another rabbit out of the bag.

For those who don’t know, Microsoft have teamed up again with NBC to build the Olympics site.

To see Bill’s presentation check out http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx
(click on one of the CES streams, NBC Olympics details begin at 35 minutes 50 seconds)

This really is a masterstroke and couldn’t be better timed. Silverlight 2.0 will have already been released along with the developer tools and it’ll have a little time to mature (or release patches at least). People will be willing to make the all important plugin download due to it being the Olympics and well, you can hardly get any better content to show off your wares.

Looks like I’m going to have to keep up my New Years resolution and build that Silverlight app, before NBC do!

** Fingers crossed, they do a really good implementation **