“RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser on Tuesday brushed off a recent rebuff from Apple Computer and called on Hollywood to keep new digital technologies open for all to use. Incompatible piracy prevention tools in new digital entertainment services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store and its iPod portable music player threaten to turn off consumers, he said,” Stefanie Olsen reports for CNET News.

[MacDailyNews Note: Apple's iTunes Music Store has "turned off consumers" to the iTune of an annual run rate of 130 million songs per year. (source)]

“‘It’s kind of a Soviet model,’ said Glaser, referring to Apple’s closed environment in a remark that drew laugher from the audience at the annual National Association of Broadcasters conference here. ‘Taking secure music off the PC is a morass of incompatibility. This is not going to fly in the mainstream market,’” Olsen reports.

[MacDailyNews Note: Apple's iTunes Music Store has "not flown in the mainstream market" to the iTune of 2.5 million songs sold per week as of March 15, 2004. (source)]

“RealNetworks has sought to position itself as a technology neutral Switzerland amid an array of competing and incompatible formats from Apple, Microsoft and others. RealNetworks’ Helix multimedia software supports all major formats, but it hasn’t won much support for its own technology among device makers,” Olsen reports.

[MacDailyNews Note: Helix, Schmelix. How do you spell failure? H-E-L-I-X.]

Olsen reports, “The company had approached Apple CEO Steve Jobs with a proposal to create a technical alliance that would allow customers of RealNetworks’ music service to play songs on the iPod, to no avail. That could now force RealNetworks into a deeper relationship with archenemy Microsoft, which has won support for its technology on dozens of players and plans a major upgrade later this summer.”

[MacDailyNews Note: "Dozens of players" that all totaled together do not equal Apple iPod market share when measured by revenue. (source)]

Full article here.