Steve Ballmer has gone a step further by continuing the damage control. “Silverlight provides the richest media streaming capabilities on the web, and we will continue to deliver that on both Windows and Mac,” wrote the Microsoft CEO in a statement released on Monday. “As I said last week, HTML 5 will provide the broadest, cross-platform reach across these devices, and Microsoft will build the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 for devices running Windows” he added.

Bob Muglia apologised for causing controversy and confusion but confirmed that the company’s strategy and focus for Silverlight has shifted. Microsoft developers reacted angrily in comments on Muglia’s blog post yesterday. “You’ve demoralized an army of developers that believe that Silverlight is the future” wrote one commenter. “MS just screwed last few MS developers left” wrote another. Muglia previous stated that there would be a future version of Silverlight and that it would be very much in line, in terms of functionality and features, as Silverlight 4.