Will HTML 5 Replace Silverlight?
At recent PDC, Microsoft sure did confuse everybody by putting HTML 5 and IE 9 Beta the top topic. Developers panicked all over the world. I was a part of PDC and all I could hear was, "Is Silverlight Dead", "Will HTML 5 replace Silverlight", "What will happen to Silverlight".
So this is one of the most talked topics in past couple of months.
Funny thing is, I gave a proposal to one of our potential client to build their new website and I put Silverlight as a part of the proposal. CEO's first question was - "Can we use HTML 5"? Followed with other questions like "Isn't Silverlight dead"? "Will HTML 5 replace Silverlight"?
So, the quick answer is NO. No, No, and No.
HTML 5 and Silverlight are two different technologies.
Just because HTML 5 has a video tag and few extra flashy stuff but that does not mean it provides everything what Silverlight does. It also does not mean that Microsoft had abandoned Silverlight development.
Here is an article that lists new features added to HTML 5.
What is new in HTML 5
While HTML 5 is a web standard to build websites using HTML, Silverlight is much more powerful to build complex enterprise based applications with flashy stuff.
Here is a detailed answer for you. See the first link below.