Microsoft has released Silverlight 1.0 today and announced it will work with Novell on developing Silverlight support for Linux.

The company also launched the Silverlight Partner Initiative, a program designed to foster collaboration among solution providers, content delivery networks, tools vendors and design agencies.

You can check out Silverlight 1.0 in action on "Entertainment Tonight," HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment as well as several Microsoft Web initiatives including the Halo 3"preview, Tafiti.com and The Podium '08. More than 35 companies have signed up to support Silverlight.

The Vole also released Expression Encoder 1.0, a tool for encoding and publishing rich media content to Silverlight.