“It sounds like Rob Glaser is itching for an invite to Apple Computer’s digital music party. Glaser, chief executive of multimedia software giant RealNetworks, derided the way Apple’s top-selling iPod music player works only with Apple’s own top-selling iTunes Music Store — and doesn’t work with rival download stores like the RealPlayer Music Store. Glaser, whose Seattle company develops RealPlayer and owns the online music site Rhapsody, shared a panel at PC Forum in Scottsdale, Ariz., Tuesday with Shane Robison, Hewlett-Packard’s chief technology officer,” Jon Fortt reports for The Mercury News.
“HP plans to begin selling its own version of the iPod in a few weeks through a partnership with Apple, so Glaser asked Robison to work on getting Apple CEO Steve Jobs to open up the iPod to others in the industry, predicting that Cupertino-based Apple’s music player will lose market share otherwise,” Fortt reports.
“‘Consumers will say, ‘I bought an iPod and I can only shop in one store. What is this, the Soviet Union?” Glaser said. ‘Steve does understand this,’ Robison said. ‘It will evolve,'” Fortt reports.
Full article here.
sounds like the death gasp. He’s looking for a life line from apple to save his online music store and share the wealth.
Why doesn’t he use the same format uses?
First post
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”raspberry” style=”border:0;” />
Perhaps Glaser wants to avoid having Rhapsody swirl down the tubes like BuyMusic.com thus asking for a lifevest from Capt. Jobs.
The Soviet Union?!? Give me a break. Like Rhapsody has a whole lot of music that iTMS doesn’t have. Yeah, right.
So why not set up their music stores to sell AAC or MP3 & it will work on the iPod?
AAC/FairPlay is Apple only, and the record companies won’t allow sales of unprotected AAC/MP3
iTMS is the de facto standard for legal downloads! Here’s to iTunes 5 soon!
—
http://homepage.mac.com/johnhood
Poor Rob, reduced to comparing Apple’s totally integrated music purchasing and management experience to Soviet Russia.
And when will Microsoft or Real make their media software feature-equivalent cross-platform? And when will MS or Real make their servers available under OS X?
What a total fscking hypocrite – between MS and their more blinkered developers and acolytes (Real included), they tried to run Apple into the ground, and now they want to be invited to the iPod party because they can’t design anything that the public wants.
As for Robison saying that ‘things will evolve’ – it’s true, they will: Real will hopefully disappear into oblivion as MS continues to stab them in the back, and then they’ll cease to be a problem.
Should have picked more trustworthy bedfellows, Rob.
Dear Steve Jobs,
Please save our failing company by opening up support for our service on your iPod device.
Sincerely,
Rob Glaser
Before the AAC discussion reboots, I’d like to suggest that even if other people licensed FairPlay, that DRM is likely tied to the VENDOR. So if Apple allows songs from Apple on the iPod, that doesn’t mean songs from another vendor would work unless the two companies cooperate. A FairPlay AAC from another company would NOT have the Apple “code” or whatever. Apple CAN control their player and their music store, and they have done so. Real and others are kept out. For now, that makes good sense.
Other companies are bound to try to do what iTunes has done, and some may survive in some form. But Apple’s in charge at the moment.
Not Again! Ok from now on MDN is not allowed to report anything WMA related news! I can’t believe this. Every second day Real this and Napster that. WHO THE FSCK CARES!
As long as Apple doesn’t tell the labels not to distribute through Napster, etal, then choice in the marketplace exists. For the say 92% of home users using Windows computers they have the freedom to choose the multitude of WMA-based services and players OR the integrated iTunes/iTMS/iPod experience. Glaser and the others are despirate.
“As for Robison saying that ‘things will evolve’ – it’s true, they will: Real will hopefully disappear into oblivion as MS continues to stab them in the back, and then they’ll cease to be a problem.” This was too funny!
One guy from Finland, how is this a WMA story. Rhapsody songs are encoded with AAC. It is just that they use a different DRM than Apple, so their stuff won’t work with iPod. It seems to me as if Apple needs to license their FairPlay DRM including access to it’s database to other vendors. (All licensing is kept on a central Apple server. Deleting a song from your hard drive does not allow you to listen to it on another computer. You must deauthorize it first.)
Wal-Mart please tell your suppliers to sell me products at your cost so I can resell them cheaper then you and beat you out of the market. Please… 🙁
Signed,
Owners of the rest of the Dept stores not worth mentioning
So why doesn’t ‘Real’ partner with Apple’s music store? You know, get together… add some more portals via Real into the iTMS stucture? I wonder if Steve would be open for that…
I guess guys in Finland can curse as well as the illiterate masses of America.
The dumbing down of the world marches on.
I keep hearing Rob Glaser and others with connections to Microsoft or other music download stores saying that iPod owners will want to use all the different online music stores and will be angry that they are locked in to the iTunes music store. Problem is, I know lots of people with iPods, both Windows and Mac users and, uhh, I have never heard any of them complain or even mention that they can’t use Rhapsody or WalMart or buymusic or Napster. Why do Glaser and these other donkeys keep trying to put words in the mouths of iPod users? Me, I like the iTunes Music Store. It’s fine. For the most part I find everything that I am looking for, but all in all, I am not really passionate about the music store. Now, on the other hand I LOVE my iPod. These guys just don’t get it. People are loyal to the player and, in my experience, mostly ambivialent to the store they get their music from. Has anyone out there heard a single iPod user griping that they cannot use Napster? Anyone?
Apple is just starting to ride the crest of its own wave…when they get to the end of their waveride, then they will consider adopting other options and opening other doors.
Currently, their is no other big wave out there, only mini-waves, so WHY should they open their store to Glaser who is spinning slowing down the toilet?? Are they doing Micro$in type tactics? Perhaps, but if you had a company who has changed the whole industry for years and years while at the same time being stepped on over and over and over. I believe when there is a real competitor(not REAL competitor, no pun intended) that Apple will eventually open their doors to other options. HP was a first step, but just like the DVD industry/formats, there needs to be some support of what is the best standard, and HP swallowed their pride and made a great move. At the same time, HP made leapfrogs over everybody else by supporting Apple, which, like it or not, is the standard music player and they are gonna make some huge profits by only putting their name on it. No one else can currently touch this unless they also support Apple.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
How is this a WMA article? Well, if this WAS the Soviet Union, we WOULD be using WMA and only WMA. So much for state-sponsored monopolies….
This from a guy whose company hides its free downloadable player so carefully that you can search to no avail to find it if youre eyesight isn’t very keen.
They guy ought to take his own advice.
Once REAL stops all the cheesy garbage it does, then he can talk smack about Apple.
Is the guy clueless? HP got it right, he did not. Now he’s whining about it.
I Love my iPod.
And like anybody else outside the USA I use it only with my ripped CD.
So I don’t care about all those itms wannabe…
Keeping the iTunes/iTMS/iPod experience closed to other download stores and/or players is not like Microsoft at all. Shieldzee is right – who are these iPod owners who are complaining?
iPod owners can order a physical CD from an artist’s web site (http://www.theclevers.com – cheap plug for friends in Seattle); through Amazon.com, drive to Target or go to their local record shop. Choice is rampant.
If Rob Glaser and Chris Gorog were smart they would spend their time working with a manufacturer to make an ipod killer and integrate it tightly with their service rather than knock Apple. They should be hiring a designer on the level of Apple’s Jonathon Ive (NYC’s Karim Rashid, France’s Phillipe Stark) and come up with the newest fashion trend in MP3 players along with a user interface that actually rises to the level of the iPod experience.
If they want a level playing field they will need to get much more creative and stop their bitching!
Actually, in Glaser’s defense, Real supports QuickTime Streaming Server within their Real server (so you can stream either/both QuickTime or Real data in either format from the same machine). Also, while I can’t guarantee this because I’ve never tried it, the PC version of RealPlayer will also play WMA and QuickTime files using the appropriate software from Microsoft and Apple. I’m not sure about the Mac version because I don’t have it installed… :^)
Frankly, I tend to agree with him. To quote Steve Jobs, “At Apple, it’s about the music.” It shouldn’t be about the format. If AAC/FairPlay is so much better than WMA/MSDRM, if iTMS is such an incredible on-line experience, they should be able to stand on their own.
pfffft.. give me a break.. yeah the soviet union.. that’s like complaining that your school is only sponsored by nike and you have to wear nikes and nike jerseys…
What?!? you mean this store is the most popular.. and even ppl on windows can use it too… i guess i should try using the virgin store.. cuz i’m curious.. oh got the software and it’s pretty slick.. oh well almost as slick as itunes…
rob glaser has to be pretty worried about apple’s customers … that’s very sweet of him lol
The point isn’t whether iTMS can “stand on its own” without having the iPod fail to support Microsoft WMA.
The point is that Apple has no desire to help Microsoft’s effort to dominate yet another industry.