I think we are reading too much from cryptic political messages. Unless HTML5 and canvas gain a lot of momentum, and Google is doing a lot in this direction, Microsoft will come up with a broken half-compatible and quirky implementation geared to badmouth the whole HTML5 thing as they did with the ODF "support" in Office.
Apple is doing something is this direction. As far as I know, there is still neither Silverlight nor Flash available on iPhone. But you can implement some neat interactive applications with Canvas and JavaScript that also work on the newer IE-Browsers. So, in my opinion, the ice for Flash/Silverlight is already getting thinner.
It sure is not a killer application, the example is only meant to show that there already are usecases where you do not need such things as Flash.
Flash: http://www.engadin.stmoritz.ch/winter/berge/corvatsch/info/p...
Canvas/Javascript: http://alpinforum.ch/m/