Flash or Silverlight Streaming

I am in the process of deciding what streaming format to use next year for our live media streaming applications. I am currently looking at the technical specs for Silverlight and while it has some good features I am not sure there is a compelling reasons to switch to it for next year.

At this point, we may be sticking with Flash streaming video for 2008 and here are the current reasons. Flash already large installed base. According to Forresters, 80% of all video streaming is viewed in Flash.

The biggest short term issue with Silverlight is the downloading and install their new plug in. Most users don't want to install yet another plug in on their computers. Worse, large corporations won't let you install new plug ins on computers. This is a factor when developing any application for a large audience. Microsoft has done a good job of keeping the install simple and that will quickly get them over this short term obstacle.

Adobe does need to address some issues with Flash soon or we will be switching to Silverlight in the future. Those issues are the higher cost of streaming using the Flash Media Server. There is no reason why it wouldn't cost the same as streaming a windows media file.
The main application will be built out in Flash for the 2008 season. It will have more features than what we had in 2007.