Microsoft to aQuantive: All Your Devs Are Belong to Silverlight

Lost in the shuffle of Microsoft's acquisition of aQuantive, is Avenue A | Razorfish. As the largest interactive agency in the world, Razorfish carries an immense amount of clout in the industry. Does anyone think for a second that the $6 billion purchase price didn't include Razorfish's army of developers converting to Silverlight for development of their RIAs? I suspect this purchase was as much about establishing a credible channel of Silverlight developers and evangelists as it was to answer Google's purchase of DoubleClick. While I still believe Flash and Flex will be the RIA and interactive development platform of choice, Microsoft certainly can't be accused of not trying.