Beeb impresses as techies mangle mother tongue
Now that the dust has settled somewhat on Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in LA this week, where the software giant made significant announcements about Windows, Office and its approach to the web, it is possible to absorb some of the other interesting developments that may have been dwarfed by the big news.
Microsoft asked a variety of customers to come along and show how they were using its technology. One of the most interesting of these was the BBC, who showed off what it is doing with its iPlayer at the end of the Windows 7 keynote on Tuesday. Although still only at the demo stage the Beeb is using Microsoft’s Mesh and Live Services as well as its Sliverlight authoring software to create a compelling offline application with real social elements built in. It pulls in your MSN Messenger contacts list and shows you what your contacts have been watching and how they have rated it. It’s also easy to share content with your friends and the man from the BBC said licence payers would be able to synch their content to all their different devices. I’d happily pay a licence fee or watch some adverts to be able to access the BBC’s treasure trove of TV and radio programmes in this way.
For various reasons I’ve been covering less technology of late so this was the first major tech gig I’d been to a for a while. As a result I’d forgotten how much the industry can garble the English language even when there’s no need to. Sure there’s a lot of jargon in the sector but was there any need for Mike Nash, corporate vp for windows product management to say in the history of Windows Microsoft has never been as “planful” as with Windows 7. Surely you’ve just done a lot of planning Mike?
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