BBC and Microsoft: Joined at the Hip?

Not another one?

Microsoft's UK online services group GM Sharon Baylay is becoming the BBC's director of marketing, comms and audiences, succeeding Tim Davie, who became audio and music director last year.

Why doesn't Microsoft just take over the BBC and be done with it?

Learning from Education

Last week I went along to the Westminster Education Forum. The programme was only peripherally concerned with open source – Mark Taylor from Sirius was talking – but I wanted to get a feel for the context in which computers were being used in schools. As well as Mark, there was a representative from Microsoft: no surprise there, but what was very noticeable was the way that Microsoft's software was simply a given in the educational context. This is extremely unfortunate, at many levels...

On Open Enteprise blog.

Ashley Highfield Goes to...Guess Where?

Microsoft.

At least it's symmetric: Erik Huggers goes from Microsoft to the BBC, and Highfield goes from the BBC to Microsoft, via Kangaroo. Let's keep it cosy, eh?

Get Real, People: Get *Real* People

I'm not a big fan of top “n” lists. They generally lack any kind of metric, and end up with bizarre compromise choices. This “Top Agenda Setters 2008”, supposedly about “the top 50 most influential individuals in the worldwide technology and IT industries”, is no exception....

On Open Enterprise blog.

And Now Ashley....

After Erik, here's Ashley, currently Director, BBC Future Media & Technology, but moving on:

So, there you have it. I've enjoyed using Ubuntu, it has a simplicity and elegance that I like and some great features that other OSes don't have (and I appreciate that I've only been scratching the surface). And it's free.

But I'd say it's horses for courses. For enterprise-side usage, or as a developers' workstation, or as a cheap platform for people with a fair amount of time on their hands and a willingness to deal with all the websites that only vaguely support Linux, fine.

For me, as a day to day operating system, would I churn from Windows or MacOS for it? Not yet; perhaps in a year or two. Critically though, I think the BBC can, and should, do more to support the Free and Open Source community, and I hope this has at least shown my commitment to listen and learn!

Hacking Ashley Highfield

Some might say I've been overly critical of the BBC's digital boss, Ashley Highfield (no, no). Be that as it may, it's certainly true that I've not offered any concrete solutions for changing his mind about the urgency of divorcing iPlayer from Microsoft (and no, Macintosh implementations do *not* count). Maybe this is the way:

The BBC's George Wright and Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon offered to install the OS on a laptop for Ashley to take home and experiment with. We're hoping that both George and Ashley will be posting about the experience.

Nice move, Jono.

Asking Ashley

For those following the iPlayer debate, Groklaw has put up perhaps the best interview with Ashley Highfield so far:

the long-term alternative solution is a world beyond DRM and how we can work together, particularly with our rights holders, to get to a world beyond DRM.

Credible, Moi?

"We have 17.1 million users of bbc.co.uk in the UK and, as far as our server logs can make out, 5 per cent of those [use Macs] and around 400 to 600 are Linux users."

So even though at least 1 per cent of people use GNU/Linux, according to most estimates, for some strange reason, 170,400 of those studiously avoid all interaction with BBC sites.

Yes, Ashley, that's really likely, isn't it? I mean, it's not that you're desperately trying to justify an unjustifiable course of action by clutching desperately at any old number you happen upon?

Update: Whilst observing the twisting in the wind on Ashley's blog (notice how suddenly he uses a conveniently smaller number - 12.2 million - for the BBC audience to reduce the GNU/Linux numbers here), I've just spotted this:

I have done a couple of interviews with silicon.com and our own BBC Backstage to try and move on the dialogue from why we needed to make the decisions we did, to where we go from here, and to how we intend moving forwards towards universal access to our content in the UK. These are intended to open more meaningful conversation based on a mutual understanding of the issues and practicalities we face.

This is pure Blair-speak (remember him?): whenever he was unable to win an argument by logic, he always invoked the "we need to move on" - which meant "I'm going to do it anyway". Ashley's use of the same trope explains a lot....

The Man from the BBC Speaketh

I've been pretty critical of many aspects of the BBC's online activities, not least its dratted Windows-only, DRM'd iPlayer. But in the interests of fairness I think I should point out this very good interview with the man responsible, Ashley Highfield, in the new UK version of PaidContent.

I still don't agree with the man, but he gives reasonable answers to the main questions, which are hard but fair. Kudos, too, to PaidContent for making both the interview recording and transcript available, and releasing the latter under a CC licence. This shows that it, at least, understands the new dynamics of the online content world. Good luck with the launch.

BBC Gets Some Things - Like YouTube

Elsewhere, I've criticised the BBC for its all-too eager embrace of Windows DRM. But in some respects, some of its top people understand the new dynamics:

The BBC has struck a content deal with YouTube, the web's most popular video sharing website, owned by Google.

...

Mr Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people's copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC's brand.

"We don't want to be overzealous, a lot of the material on YouTube is good promotional content for us," he said.