BBC iPlayer - letting the side down

The BBC have developed a media viewer called iPlayer that will only run on Microsoft Windows. What were they thinking?

This petition on the Prime Ministers web site is proposing that the BBC should be required to hold off on releasing iPlayer until they can get it to work on all platforms.

I would like to suggest that you sign the petition if you are a UK citizen or UK resident.

In their usual schizophrenic style in matters such as this, the BBC have an article about the iPlayer and the petition:

BBC NEWS | Technology | iPlayer faces petition pressure

I confess that apart from the platform support issue I am very disappointed with the BBC for having selected a closed, Microsoft controlled, media file format. The BBC claim that this is because of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) issues, but that seems a very weak argument for giving such a boon to Microsoft Inc. and in so doing putting in place non-trivial barriers for legitimate access to BBC content.

Not cricket, BBC. You are letting the side down rather badly here. Please think again.