When you strike at a king you must kill him.

Google baldy wounded Yahoo in that fashion. Facebook is trying to be more than it is. I think it could easily fail, but it is probably the right goal.

Silverlight is EEE for the web.

First, MSFT deploys Silverlight clients broadly. In this phase, they will do just about anything to see it deployed on any platform available, specifically including Linux and MacOS. Continue until essentially all new computers include a Silverlight client.

Secondly, persuade developers that Silverlight is a viable platform. This requires (1) - mass developer adoption of a sparsely-deployed or Windows-only web platform won't happen, not even with MSFT's marketing muscle. Continue until Silverlight achieves Flash-like ubiquity.

Thirdly, either through patents, DMCA, obscurity, or all three, kill off any non-MSFT Silverlight server-side solutions. Ensure that Silverlight app quality is superior to web apps by, if necessary, sabotaging web standards efforts and keeping IE buggy.

At that point, if you want to deploy a 'serious' app over the Internet, you'll (hopefully, from MSFT's perspective) feel strongly compelled to pay the MSFT tax and buy Silverlight servers. (For extra fun, in a few years, maybe MSFT chokes off non-Windows Silverlight client implementations. That's extra-speculative, however. My core speculation is that Silverlight is best understood as MSFT's play for the datacenter.)

A lot of money has been made by companies who successfully set up 'toll booths' between buyers and sellers. MSFT's OS monopoly was based upon providing the means for application developers to deliver their wares to consumers. Game console maker's profits are based upon their ability to restrict access to the gamers who own their consoles to companies who give them money. (I'm not saying this is unethical, just how the money is made.) The web undermines this model; the standards are open and (pretty) simple, clients and servers are freely available, and therefore there's no way to erect a toll booth between app developers/content publishers and consumers.

It looks to me that MSFT would like to change that. (So would Adobe, but they're a lot less able to pull it off.)

Anyway, a little paranoia for you there. Enjoy!