Showing posts with label windows media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label windows media. Show all posts

22 June 2007

Time for BBC to Face the Music

Great to see the plucky Open Source Consortium getting its terrier-like teeth into the corpulent flesh that is the BBC:

The Open Source Consortium has written to Ofcom, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the BBC Trust, asking for a re-examination of the effects of the BBC's iPlayer (TV on-demand) service being tied into Microsoft Windows Media Player for at least two years and, by extension, new versions of Windows, to be considered.

OSC Chief Executive Iain Roberts said "This action from the BBC effectively promotes one operating system vendor at the expense of others. It is very disturbing that the BBC should be using licence payers' money to affect the operating system market in this way. Imagine if the BBC were to launch new digital channels, but only make them available on a certain make of television - there would be uproar."

We can't let the BBC get away with this, and it's great to see the OSC stepping into the arena to take on the bloated behemoth.

04 May 2007

Something Rotten in the State of the BBC

This is beginning to look seriously bad.

First, the BBC makes a duff decision over adopting Windows DRM, and now this:

Erik Huggers, a senior director for Microsoft’s entertainment business, becomes controller in charge of overseeing program strategy. He had previously been responsible for strategy on “MSTV, eHome, Zune and more” and had previously been a senior director for the Windows client division. Huggers also has done a lot to get Windows Media adopted by European broadcasters.

So much for the BBC Trust's commitment to "auditing" the BBC's progress in working towards platform neutrality: you can audit until you're blue in the face, but if the man running an important part of the BBC's Future Media & Technology unit is someone who "has done a lot to get Windows Media adopted by European broadcasters", then clearly you're stuffed.