All about lock in...
It's not so much about the issue of not having a media player "yet" for Linux or Apple's broken OSs, (and I'll ignore the muppets who are attempting to be smart by wanting it on TRS-80s).... it's about the infernal lock-in cycle that the monopoly Microsoft are foisting on EVERYBODY and idiots like the BBC (who now seem to be run by MS execs) are just propagating this further...
I don't disagree with a plan to initially develop on the most widely used operating system there currently is. However to do it in such a way that it cannot also be implemented (later) on ANY other systems is bordering on criminal.
For instance...
In order to access the iPlayer service you MUST use Internet Explorer (aka. Idiot Explorer, because you'd have to be an idiot to choose to use it). - the world's worst Web Browser
In order to use IE, you must use it on a recent Microsoft platform (yes, there was IE available for Macs, but that was a long time ago and running an emulator is still, effectively, running it on the platform). Besides, it "requires" IE because of the abhorrent insecure bastardisations that are ActiveX controls, these don't work on anything other than Intel platforms.
If you buy a new PC from January, unless you're a corporate and have paid Microsoft over the odds for a "discount" plan, then you're forced to use MS Vista or get one of the very rare Linux or OS free systems (something that MS has lobbied and bullied their way to ensuring is very difficult)
It continues, from every possible angle...
In order to use e-mail in a corporate environment, you must use Outlook and Exchange (IBM effectively killed the only other partly worthwhile competitor as they'd rather "websphere" than Notes, and Novell killed groupwise through incompentence). Exchange is morinically twisted and intertwied with IIS, itself a bastardised abortion of an application of epic proportions (it's pathetically inefficient, unwieldy, unmanagemable and unstable... then try maintaining or upgrading it). Yet Exchange is so separate from IIS that while it requires it, it cannot actually integrate fully).
IIS requires Active Directory to purport to running in any even partly manageable state with any form of security (don't want to serve insecure web pages? tough, HTTP is *required*, secure web pages (HTTPS) is optional). Want to use it as a web server on the Internet with user logins? Forget it's so-called security model, instead log all users on with full access rights and roll your own security model... or pay stupid amounts of money, your choice.
Of course, everything these days is sharepoint... another abortion of epic proportions... it requires IIS Active Directory and MS-SQL yet somehow manages to completely fail to integrate properly into each of them. MS SQL server, of course, is another stunning piece of inefficient resource swallowing unaccountable and unmanagable bloatware. Sharepoint, of course, is a document management system that sets the industry back 10-15 years compared to what was there before. It also pretends to be a web server, yet can neither operate with or without IIS and if you want to manage users on it you have to spend £30,000 for a Internet facing version or purchase CA licences for each and every user. Don't forget though, that due to the borked attempt security model, if you give them access to your website then they have access to your corporate network as well. Sharepoint is also being HEAVILY pushed by MS as a replacement to the windows server file system.
The windows server filesystem... still behind what even Netware could manage 15 years ago and other operating systems have managed prior and since. Want to undelete a file? Forget it, fetch it from a backup. Want to manage file versions? forget it, not possible. Want a SANE security model without lots of stupid gotchas, inexplicable hacks (share and security access anyone?) and NO accountability whatsoever, use NTFS. In order to find the rights that a user has you have to query each and every resource in every tree. This is not a function of a real operating system's security model, it's a hack on top of a single user window interface.
If you want to secure your office network by using something other than Internet Explorer as a corporate browser, forget it. MS updated SharePoint and Outlook WebAccess to "better support" (i.e. bork entirely and require more ActiveX controls to do anything useful). You can't have your users use Internet Explorer for internal resources and a decent, half secure browser for external access because this requires careful control and will never work. You can't put in place proper security at the firewall because intelligent firewalls that enforce standards block Internet Explorer and it's additional privacy busting headers and other fun additions to standards. Try to adequately protect your internal resources (web servers, etc) and you also suffer the same fate.
So, in short - as soon as you deploy windows in your corporate environment you quickly become rail-roaded into dropping every other technology you have/had and using MS's invariably (but not at first glance) more expensive and inferior systems. MS's next plan is to take control of office phone systems by badly integrating them with Exchange. Their Instant Messaging takeover ploy hasn't worked yet, but only because the majority of Smart Phones/Carriers don't or won't support it and neither does their server software. What's more you'll do this "voluntarily"
All this and I have MCSE and MCSA qualifications... had Novell quals as well, for what good that does these days...
I'd love to suggest alternatives but users don't want them because there is only one operating system, one word processor, one spreadsheet, one e-mail client, one instant messenger application, one server platform, one web server platform...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
