Today at Build, Microsoft announced that developers will be able to build native Metro applications for Windows 8 using XAML, C#, Visual Basic, C++, HTML5 and more. This will surely come as relief to .Net and Silverlight developers concerned that Microsoft would de-prioritize those platforms. Silverlight is a framework for building applications with XAML and .Net, so Silverlight developers will have a very familiar tool set for building Metro apps.

When Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 at the D9 conference earlier this year, the company demoed a set of Metro-style “immersive” apps saying these apps are created with HTML5 and JavaScript (and, presumably, CSS3). This raised concerns in both the Silverlight and .Net communities, who were concerned that they would only be able to build “classic” style Windows applications with their current skill sets. It turns out the new Windows runtime (WinRT) will natively support Metro apps built with several different languages, not just HTML5 and JavaScript.

It’s not all good news for .Net and Silverlight developers, though. ZDNet’s Microsoft Maven Mary Jo Foley notes:

At Build, there are lots and lots of sessions aimed at educating developers about the new app model for Windows 8, and how developers can use HTML5 and JavaScript to write the new, immersive, “Metro style” applications for the platform. There are very few about .Net, Visual Basic and C#. And there are none that I noticed on how/when/if developers can use non-Microsoft tools and frameworks (PHP, Ruby, etc.) to write Windows 8 apps. And there are none on Silverlight.

Also at Build, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Expression Blend will support Metro development using HTML5. It definitely sounds like Microsoft will continue to emphasize HTML5 moving forward.

Services Angle

It would have been surprising if Microsoft had abandoned .Net and Silverlight developers, and considering that the Windows Phone 7 Metro apps are built with Silverlight, support for Windows 8 Metro shouldn’t have been too difficult. But this should still come as relief to companies and developers working on projects using those platforms.