Less than 8 months after launching their Silverlight powered rich media video player, British broadcaster, ITV have dropped Microsoft’s rich streaming platform in favour of the more established, Adobe Flash Player.

According to a recent report from Adobe EMEA Flash Platform Evangelist Andrew Shorten, technical problems experienced by end-users, and the relatively low distribution of the the runtime, are partly to blame for ITV abandoning Microsoft’s rich streaming platform.

The Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) are going to start trialing a new streaming service powered by Silverlight, and Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming, for UFC #102 on August 29th.

They are still using Flash Media Server for streaming pre-recorded and live events, and have added Silverlight to their streaming client arsenal, in an effort to to reach the broadest possible audience.

Novell is making life easier for Unix and Linux users who wish to view content developed with Microsoft’s Silverlight, with the release this week of the feature-complete Beta Version 2.0 of their open-source Moonlight rich client.

After a short (but successful) season running with Adobe’s Flash Platform, for their Sunday Night Football Extra interactive streaming video application. The NFL announced that they’ve signed a new deal with NBC which (effectively) passes the streaming video platform gauntlet to Microsoft. Who are set to leverage Silverlight and Smooth Streaming for Sunday Night Football Extra.