Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web reports "our poll suggests that most people are indeed impressed by Silverlight. 23% rated it "awesome" and 32% "promising". So over half give it the thumbs up. 25% of respondents rated it "meh", but only 9% said it's terrible."

Richard goes on to say "Microsoft's newly improved rich internet app plug-in that was launched to (unusually) rave blog reviews at MIX on Monday. Some people even said that Silverlight leaves Adobe's Flash technology in the dust..."

It is very early in the game and Flash has a huge installed base. Microsoft has delivered a very powerful suite of tools for developers and designers. Microsoft is traditionally very strong in developer tools. Making the jump to designer tools should be an easy transition from a technical point of view, but perhaps more difficult from a marketing stand point. This is a logical move for Microsoft and over the long run should prove to be very successful.

It just makes sense. Microsoft Expression Studio for designers, Visual Studio for developers, and Silverlight for web runtime, and they all work together seamlessly. Developers and designers can finally use the same tools and environment instead of starting over again in different tools at each step. It just makes sense.