A Letter To NBC

sk43999

July 5, 2008

Following up on the discussion of NBC, the Summer Olympics, and Microsoft, here is a letter I composed to NBC:

--------------------------------------------

Jeff Zucker, Chief Executive Officer
NBC Universal
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112

Dear Mr. Zucker,

I was recently excited to visit your new website "www.nbcolympics.com", which will provide dramatic, in-depth coverage of the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics. My excitement turned to dismay, however, when I found that, unlike websites of your competitors, I was unable to view much of the content using either of my home computers (an Asus eee PC 2G and a Nokia N810). Upon further investigation, I found that your website has requirements such as

Windows Media Player: Video highlights and interviews on NBCOlympics.com - 9,10, or 11 (11 Recommended)

Microsoft Silverlight: Enhanced video experience for PC and Macintosh - 2.0b2

and

Video is currently supported on the following browsers:

- Internet Explorer 6 for Windows
- Internet Explorer 7 for Windows
- Firefox 2.0 for Windows

Still further, I learned that your "on the go" service will only work with Microsoft Windows Vista. While I am sure there are good reasons for all the above requirements, it means that for me to properly experience your website, I will need to discard both of my current machines and purchase new ones with increased amounts of energy-burning ram, CPU, and disk storage to meet the insatiable needs of Vista. By doing so, I will be placing additional burden on our over-stressed landfills and accelerating the pace of global warming. I am not alone - of the top 25 selling notebook computers at amazon.com, over 2/3 fail to meet your demanding requirements. In short, your website is an ecological disaster.

I look forward to following the Olympics this summer, but it appears that I will not be doing so from an NBC website.

Sincerely yours,

sk43999

CC: Steve Balmer, CEO, Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052.

References:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20080623-nbc-olympics-on-the-go-download-service-is-vista-only.html

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-Screen-Celeron-Processor-Preloaded/dp/B001150JW2/
ref=pd_ts_pc_3?ie=UTF8&s=pc

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-N810-Portable-Internet-Tablet/dp/B000Y4AH3C/
ref=pd_ts_pc_10?ie=UTF8&s=pc

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/pc/565108/ref=pd_ts_pc_nav

9:52:18 AM

Source: Investor Village SCO Board [ http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=1911 ]