Microsoft plans to demonstrate integration Friday between its new Silveright browser plug-in technology for rich Internet applications and the Ruby on Rails Web framework.

The integration will be done via a plug-in, according to a Microsoft representative. Microsoft officials will detail Ruby on Rails efforts at the RailsConf 2008 conference in Portland, Ore., which is happening now through the weekend. The plug-in will be free to conference attendees.

Silverlight is Microsoft's entry into the rich Internet application space, where the company will battle Adobe's Flash technology.

Also at the event, Microsoft officials will demonstrate IronRuby, a version of the Ruby programming language for Microsoft's .Net platform, running a Ruby on Rails application.

"Running Rails shows that we are serious when we say that we are going to create a Ruby that runs real Ruby programs. And there isn’t a more real Ruby program than Rails," said a blog entry on Friday from Microsoft's John Lam, a program manager in the Dynamic Language Runtime team, who will present at the conference.

The company, though, still needs to improve performance on Rails, he said. Currently, too much memory is being consumed.

"IronRuby doesn’t just let you run Rails; it lets you interact with the rich set of libraries provided by .Net," Lam said. "You’ll be able to use IronRuby to build server-based applications that run on top of ASP.Net or ASP.Net MVC. You’ll be able to use IronRuby to build client applications that run on top of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) or Silverlight."

The IronRuby project in general has featured processes that make it easier for Microsoft to develop open source projects, said Lam.

"What we learn from building IronRuby will be applied in other product groups to help us become more open and transparent than we have been in the past," Lam said.