Microsoft is planning a major announcement surrounding its Silverlight web application tool.

The company has notified reporters of a conference call scheduled for 0900 US Pacific time (1700 GMT) on 13 October.

Scott Guthrie, .Net corporate vice president at Microsoft, will make what the company calls a "significant announcement related to Microsoft Silverlight".

The release did not provide any further details about the nature of the announcement. However, media reports citing sources within the company appear to confirm the imminent announcement of Silverlight 2.0.

The second instalment of Microsoft's web app development system has been in public testing throughout the year and a release candidate was said to be completed in September.

Silverlight 2.0 has been touted as a significantly stronger version of the platform. The software will be cross-platform and cross-browser, and Microsoft has promised to add a number of new components to allow Silverlight to access new data sources and take advantage of Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation.