Microsoft has announced their Silverlight project which is taking on Flash. That I really don't care about since I don't use Flash and get annoyed by it regularly. But at least the thing supports Python.
But the tech behind Silverlight, that is a different question. Turns out it is using something called Core CLR which is .NET's CLR but without all of the Windows-specific stuff in it. That's nice, but so what? Well, realize that Silverlight runs on Windows and Mac right now (no news on a Linux version, but the Mono guys I'm sure can handle that). That means that Core CLR is multi-platform.
Along with the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) being announced, that should mean that running IronPython on the Mac should not be an issue and not require Mono. That might be a performance boon as obviously MS has more money and manpower to toss at .NET than Novell has at Mono.
I would keep an eye on Michael Foord's blog as more details about all of this comes out.
