A lot of talking went on in the last months whether 1.1 was a good version number for Silverlight vNext, the one that will support managed code, a more extended BCL. And almost everybody agreed that, since the "next" Silverlight was a completely different beast from the currently released 1.0, a point release didn't give the feel of the differences between the 2 versions. Today ScottGu announced that Silverlight 1.1 has been renamed to Silverlight 2.0:

Previously we've been referring to this .NET-enabled Silverlight release as "Silverlight V1.1".  After stepping back and looking at all the new features in it (the above list is only a subset - there are many more we aren't sharing yet), we've realized that calling it a point release doesn't really reflect the true nature of it.  Consequently we have decided to change the name and refer to it as "Silverlight V2.0" going forward.

The first beta release of this managed Silverlight will be in Q1 2008, and will support a Go-Live license.

This next release will feature:

• Richer WPF UI: with layout manager, data-binding, skinning and control template
• Rich Controls: the next version will have the common controls like button, textbox, radio button, check box, etc.
• Network Support: REST, POX, RSS, WS* and cross-domain network access
• Extended BCL support: LINQ to XML, HTML DOM API, and more

But I fear that it will not be released for the Silverlight Challenge, actually my guess is that it will be released for the MIX08 in March 2008.