Microsoft probably provided much of the Netflix Silverlight deployment for free to make sure there was a Silverlight user in the media market. Netflix is just about the only one, and they may have regrets now that Android is a big player in the phone and tablet market. Netflix has an Android ap, but it seems to need special attention to get it working on many phones.

It seems very likely that Microsoft would use their formidable influence to convince copyright holders that Silverlight provides some additional measure of security for their media. Keeping it off Linux would be part of the security and happens to play right into the Microsoft philosophy that they need features setting them apart from freeware.

All this posturing is being overcome by events, though, as Microsoft moves away from WPF and Silverlight in favour of html5. Netflix may just turn to Flash as Silverlight becomes extinct. We’ll see.