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BBC "Not In Bed With Bill Gates"

Posted by kdawson on from the nobody-uses-linux-anyway dept.

whoever57 writes "The BBC's head of technology denied rumors that a secret deal with Microsoft was behind the XP-only launch of the BBC's iPlayer. According to Ashley Highfield, the reason that the player only supports Windows XP is that only a small number of Linux visitors have come to the BBC's website. Why he would expect a large number of Linux-based visitors to the site when the media downloads are Windows XP only is not clear. He also thinks that 'Launching a software service to every platform simultaneously would have been launch suicide,' despite the example of many major sites that support Linux (even if this is through the closed-source flash player)."

2 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. BBC's charter by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The interesting bit here is the Beeb isn't really a commercial organization. They're a public entity which is strictly required to keep itself free of commercial and political influence.

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  2. Re:Of course it was by teh+kurisu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If MS and the BBC were in cahoots, don't you think there would be a Vista version? Microsoft doesn't want you buying XP any more.