So Microsoft technology will support an open video format, while Google's Chrome only supports proprietary ones? Clearly, this is a confusion/FUD move by Microsoft.
Erm, Chrome supports Theora in HTML5 video. I just played a few of the examples from http://double.co.nz/video_test/ as well as the Opera page linked from there to test, and they worked fine.
Huh, so chrome supports theora AND h264?
And if you swap out its copies of the ffmpeg libraries with unmolested ones, it supports every codec and container format under the sun!
yes
Microsoft has no part in this. Highgate Media Suite is creating the Ogg Decoder as a Silverlight library.
This is, technically, an effort by people to ensure Theora is usable in most web browsers. In other words, they're bringing a decoder to IE and any that don't support Theora ... if the user has Silverlight/Mono.