“Apple Computer Inc. apparently doesn’t want to sing the same tune as its Internet music rival RealNetworks Inc. Seattle-based RealNetworks said Thursday that Apple chairman Steve Jobs had rebuffed an offer by RealNetworks’ chief executive Rob Glaser to meet and discuss forming an online music alliance involving Apple’s best-selling iPod portable players,” The Associated Press reports.
“‘He’s in the neighborhood, but whatever meeting Rob wanted with Steve isn’t happening,’ RealNetworks spokesman Greg Chiemingo said Thursday. ‘Steve just doesn’t want to open the iPod, and we don’t understand that.’ Executives at Cupertino-based Apple declined to comment. As first reported in The New York Times, Glaser made the invitation in an e-mail to Jobs last week that suggested that the two companies join forces against their common enemy, Microsoft Corp. He proposed a meeting to discuss the matter this week while he was in the Silicon Valley,” AP reports.
“RealNetworks, Apple and Microsoft all are jockeying for position in digital media – in which encoding formats and copy-protection technologies dictate how and on which devices consumers play their music. Like Apple’s leading iTunes song-download store, RealNetworks’ online music store supports the Advanced Audio Coding format, which competes against Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio format predominantly used by other legal music sites. But because of Apple’s proprietary copy-protection standard Fairplay, songs attained from RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service and RealPlayer music store cannot be played on Apple’s iPod players,” AP reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Steve just doesn’t want to open the iPod, and we don’t understand that,” says Real’s spokesman. What exactly doesn’t Real understand? Perhaps Real is getting dizzy as it circles the bowl? One more question: what has Real to offer Apple that Apple doesn’t already have?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
RealNetworks urges Apple to license Fairplay DRM; wants to form ‘tactical alliance’ in online music biz – April 15, 2004
RealNetworks caught between Microsoft rock and Apple hard place – April 08, 2004
Real CEO hopes for Apple iPod opening – March 31, 2004
Apple should not let any other online music services work with iPod – March 24, 2004
Real CEO Glaser begs Apple to make iPod play nice with other music services – March 24, 2004
Real made to major mistakes here
1. It wasn’t an offer it was a threat
2. They announced it to the public
What exactly doesn’t Real understand?
real doesnt understand what steve personality: close, loyal
pffft.. EXACTLY.. Real is a joke in this race.. WHAT IS THEIR ‘proprietary format”? I keep thinking about their .ra streaming files..but what is their own format?
Ugh… Obviously if Real cared about pleasing customers, it would fix its own software first, then think about growing share…
Mmmmm Growing Share.. HAHAHAHAHA… (image)
Man this is such an interesting ‘race’… lol..i LOVE it.. in the Summer, Apple should roll out the Europe store.. god imagine how much better it’s gonna be than the Napster (diff. price for each country) store!!
Napster wants to be the first.. well.. OD2 and Coke are already over there.. so they’re not really first..
BOTTOM LINE: IF REAL AND APPLE WERE TOGETHER WOULD THE BENEFIT TO APPLE BE MORE THAN THE COST? WOULD THEY FORM A BOND VS. MS?
Pffft…Real does not mention anything except.. IF YOU LET US.. WE’LL PLAY ON THE iPOD!..Sounds like a Win-Lose for Real.. Great negotiator.. lmfao
well now real will go to microsoft, this is ipods last year on top, microsoft/real/roxio will all eventually adopt WMA and apple’s closed system will die on the windows machine. Apple had there chance to bring real to quicktime by Licensing for a limited time to see how it works. actually real player isnt as bad as people say, there is a lot of exclusive stuff for it and it will soon be the only player to play all formats. as a stand alone player (not streaming) it sucks though, and takes over system resources to much.
This is only about REAL and only about a way for them to find a
way out of the slowly spinning flush cycle that they are currently in. REAL has never ever affected my life in any way.
I have never used realplayer or anything that they have to offer. Apple can’t meet demand currently until December…why do they need REAL to increase more demand at this time. Based on the past, why should Apple’s borders be open until they have to be. What goes around comes around.
You don’t go into any positive business situation using leverage saying you want to join forces against the enemy and then say that you may have to join the enemy if you don’t agree to join forces. Fact and reality is that in the digital music business, Micro$in and REAL are not yet players or forces in this market, they are only potential threats to be forces in this market. Currently, Apple rules and controls the market, and they are doing it with the best quality device, unlike Micro$in ruling the market with a swisscheese OS and with a bloated word processor, a database calculator in Excel, 2 dimentional text mover with Powerfail, and yes, a decent mail system.
Aha! Now I finally get it. The editorial slant of this site is supposed to be a *parody* of mindless Mac mania. Right? And all this time I thought you people were really this crazy. *sigh of relief*
Leave slappy be. He funny like jamie Kennedy. Like a MDN mascot. lol
But because of Apple’s proprietary copy-protection standard Fairplay, songs attained from RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service and RealPlayer music store cannot be played on Apple’s iPod players
This one is pretty funny. It should read: Because of Real’s proprietary copy-protection standard Helix, songs attained from RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service and RealPlayer music store cannot be played on Apple’s iPod players
Blaming FairPlay is not fair. It’s like blaming my neighbors for my inability to get into their house because they use a different key that I have.
Any good illustrators around, you could draw slappy.
Real brings nothing to the table. Have they even sold a million songs yet? Half a million? Besides, as Jadis mentioned, people are going to iTMS because they bought iPods, not the other way around. So are the 3 million iPod owners going to ditch their $250 – $500 iPods just because they’d rather buy from Real, or Microsoft? No, in fact, they’ll buy another iPod because all the music they already purchased is AAC/FairPlay which won’t play on any other player. These guys just don’t get it. They’re staring at the cows ass waiting for the moo.
RealNwtworks sure has put itself into a weak bargaining position with M$. I can picture M$ talking to Glaser now…
“You tried to ally with Apple against a “common enemy” (us) and now you want to talk WMA? Well here’s how its going to be…”
Steve Jobs typed a short message to The New York Times as he forwarded them Glaser’s email: “This should fuck ’em Real good.”