Netflix announced the release of a streaming app for Windows Phone 7. The second major mobile platform supported by the movie service. Netflix Product Development Manager, Greg Peters, talked today about why Android is surprisingly does not have a functional Netflix app: FRAGMENTATION
We are eager to launch on these devices and are disappointed that we haven’t been able to do so already. The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. -Greg Peters
While Google does not feel that there is a fragmentation issue for the Android platform, many who watch the mobile industry do. I personally DO think that the Android environment is fragmented and too controlled by the carriers as opposed to the OS manufacturer Google. When a consumer can purchase a "new" phone that comes shipped with an older version of the OS and there is a strong chance that the carrier will block any future updates... You can't help but have fragmentation. Additionally, with newer features that older phones cannot have access to we are now looking at the beginning of impact on application developers; the fragmentation of application versions...
[Because of the DRM issue] this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won’t.
Sad, but true, and some even predict the fragmentation to get worse...
