Microsoft announced recently that its Silverlight technology has been chosen to deliver live on the Internet U.S. President Elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. The transmission will be available on the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s Web site.

Barack Obama and Vice President Elect Joe Biden will be sworn in next week on Tuesday in Washington DC. At the time, they will also deliver their inauguration speeches.

Microsoft’s technology was released in April 2007, looking to bring some competition t Adobe Flash. It is composed of a tool for developing Internet apps and a media player for accessing content. Still, the company had to improve its product in order to properly compete against Flash and October’s Silverlight 2 release managed to do just that, becoming a viable alternative for building rich Internet applications (RIAs).

Among its uses over the past several months, Silverlight streamed proceedings from the convention, through a deal with the Democratic National Convention Committee, which included Obama’s acceptance speech to a crowd of more than 80,000 people. Another contract was signed with US television network NBC for delivering thousands of hours of live and on demand coverage from Beijing’s Olympic Games last year.

Still, the service has its share of problems. Its first high-profile contract with MLB.com, the Web site of the Major League Baseball Advanced Media, was annuled, as the group decided to switch over to Adobe Flash for streaming its live baseball games.

"Microsoft is proud to be part of this event by helping to bring the inauguration activities online. Just as during the campaign itself, Internet technology is enabling people around the world to participate more directly in historic events in new and exciting ways," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel.