The head of Adobe Systems has questioned Microsoft's commitment to keeping its new Silverlight platform compatible with other operating systems besides Windows.

Silverlight, which is seen as Microsoft's challenger to Adobe's Flash format, was unveiled Monday at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas.

"Microsoft, historically, has never demonstrated a commitment to maintaining a cross-platform solution," Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe, said in an interview Tuesday in Tokyo. He cited Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer as examples of Microsoft products that are still being developed for Windows but have been ended for the Mac platform.

Chizen was happy to suggest that Silverlight may suffer the same fate.

"Even though they say Silverlight is going to be cross-platform, and maybe the first [version] will be, I'm not sure our customers or the people that are trying to deliver that content will have the degree of confidence that if they go with Microsoft, they'll be able to provide them with a complete cross-platform solution forever," he said.

Flash has been around for 10 years and for much of its life was best known as a platform for quirky animations, but its use has exploded recently along with the popularity of Web-based video sites like YouTube, which use Flash to deliver streaming video to users. It is quickly becoming the de facto standard for delivering streaming media over the Web, and with Silverlight Microsoft hopes to grab a slice of this lucrative market.

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