What is Silverlight? In Plain English, Please.

Question

Referring to: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7472851 
Do you know what I wish?  I wish, just for once that a simple and concise description of what a product is and what it really can do could be posted right up front, on the landing page, or at most one link deep.  Not the marketing hype, not the techno-speak,
not the jargon.  Just a plain simple description of what the thing does, what it is.  That would be really nice. Because, all I see on the pages I have visited from the link above is just that, techno-speak, jargon and hype.
Look.  I get lots of e-mails, every day.  So, I get one from Microsoft indicating this new product, Silverlight, is available.  It sounds interesting, The graphics sure are nifty.  So, I click on the link to see if it is something I am interested in. 
I mean, "Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web." is a nifty one-liner.  But, it really does not say much.  It means nothing to most
people.  (Not everyone who receives MS e-mails is a top-level multi-certified techno-geek!)
There ought to be a link titled something like "What is Silverlight."  This link would lead to plain-English description of the product.  Again, cut the techno-speak.  Provide a concise description of the product, what it can do, how it does it and stuff like
that.  Let me decide if it really is as fantastic as the marketing department wants me to think it is.  Look, I'll give you 5 or maybe 10 minutes of my time to read through your descriptions, and then I will decide if it is so great that I want to invest considerable
time and energy learning how to work it.  And, if there is a cost involved, whether it is something I want to shell out the going rate for.
How about it?  Think about it.  Can someone have the balls to just cut the techno-speak, jargon and marketing hype and give it to us in plain English?  Please.

Answer 1

 Thanks for your response.  Okay, so it's a platform, not a "product."  Semantics.  Do you understand my point?  Too often it seems that product/platform descriptions are written with so much jargon and techno-speak that unless one is fluent in the jargon
it is difficult if not impossible to quickly understand what a new product is.  (Product being a generic term here to point at the new thing.)  You see, in your reply you have begun to describe it in terms more easily understood.  That is precisely
my point.  Too often when companies, MS and others, attempt to describe their products they use a barrage of jargon and techno-speak that makes if very difficult to understand in simple terms what the product actually does.  I know, everyone wants to keep
up with the competition and impress with their command of fancy terms.  But, good effective communication is not about jargon.  It is about describing in clear terms so that people in a busy world full of time constraints and demands for our attention can
gather information, distill it and make decisions as to what new products to understand, learn and implement.  That is my point.  My point is not a question.  My point is a heads-up to remind folks that it is important to communicate clearly and with precision. 
Marketing is great, but useless if folks can't get the information they need to understand and make decisions.  We live in a world saturated with information.  Clouding information with jargon and techno-speak may appear impressive but it hinders the effective
delivery of information.  Also, please don't assume I'm asking for "baby terms."  I'm not.  I can understand what something like Silverlight does.  But too much jargon gets confusing and results in my either spending extra time trying to understand the jargon
or simply deciding it's not for me and moving on to something else.  Of course, all of us working in the various IT endeavors must use a certain amount of technical terms that are short and understood by those in our various industries.  (I'm no newbie, either. 
I've been working with and understanding these silicon wonders since the early 1980s.  I also have two college degrees, one in computer science.  So, I'm no idiot.  I'm just not current on every single frigin' term that companies and techno-geeks come up with
in the ever changing landscape of new terms, processes, products, platforms and other techno-stuff.)  But, even then, we need to be careful that we communicate clearly and effectively.  That is a skill, and art, that, like any skill, requires working at it,
polishing the skill and efforting it.  So, there's a balance between using jargony terms and overkill.  The art is finding the balance.  Again, it's not a question as much as it is a point to be made.
MHW22