“Now that Microsoft has put aside the last of the big antitrust suits hanging over its head in the United States, the software giant is ready to take on Apple in the online music market. Microsoft has signed a $761 million agreement that settles the lawsuit filed by RealNetworks nearly two years ago. In ending the suit, Microsoft can join RealNetworks in battling the market leader in digital music,” Antone Gonsalves writes for Internetweek.
“For consumers, the benefit in the Microsoft-RealNetworks alliance is in interoperability. The agreement means it’s more likely the companies’ products will work well together, which is a big plus. Apple’s greatest weakness is its strategy of customer lock in. The company does all it can to make sure people who buy music from its service, play it on the iPod. That’s a mistake,” Gonsalves writes.
“Consumers want choice, and, in time, they’ll leave Apple for rivals that make it possible to choose from multiple music players, and not just one. Microsoft and RealNetworks understand this, and their alliance moves them in that direction,” Gonsalves writes.
Full article here.
Interoperability? Apple offers the only cross-platform (for Mac and Windows) solution with iPod+iTunes+iTunes Music Store. Customers will leave Apple to choose from multiple music players? That’s funny, when Apple already offers multiple music players and nearly everyone seems to want an iPod nano or a large-capacity iPod or a tiny iPod shuffle. Multiple music players, software, and an online music service that offer interoperability for both Mac and Windows PC users are offered only by Apple.
Related articles:
Microsoft to pay RealNetworks $761 million antitrust lawsuit settlement – October 11, 2005
Apple’s vs. Microsoft’s music DRM: whose solution supports more users? – August 17, 2005
Apple’s roadkill whine in unison: ‘incompatibility is slowing growth of digital music’ – August 13, 2005
The New Zealand Herald serves up a steaming pile of iPod FUD – August 11, 2005
Apple’s iPod and iTunes competitors continue whining about FairPlay – February 07, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
Get real.
It won’t work.
Another lossers’ story
Actually, that should say, “don’t get real!”
Sell your APPL stock now before its to late. The M$ giant has awoke and is pissed at Steve cause he’s trying to take more than his share.
Microsoft will simply continue to screw RealNetworks wherever and whenever it feels it will somehow get some little advantage. In the process, they will continue to validate what every hacker in the world knows: Microsoft is utterly evil. Along with this perception goes the mistrust that will prevent anyone from paying Microsoft for entertainment content. Why would someone buy music from “Dr. Evil” when suckers are already paying for Windows crap and then paying Microsoft’s upcoming protection racket to make squash bugs?
Again, they just don’t like the choices people are making
MDN “any” – Please don’t make any choices, other than ours.
And he thinks Microsoft doesn’t lock people in? Since when may I ask?
Wow, this Antone Gonsalves guy is the very definition of the word TOOL.
If Microsoft truly wants to offer choice, then why does their DRM work only with Windows PCs? Oh yeah I forgot, Microsoft is all for choice, but only as long as your choice is Microsoft of course. What a joke.
sheesh !!
Its bad enuff to listen to the low-quality WM – mp3 files … does this mean we will be inundated with “no-quality”
mp3 files encodes with RM ???
Wheres my Tylenol ?
Micro$oftopoly, the evil empire. All Doughnut boy is doing is going home.
I love being locked into the Four Seasons. Who wants to choose between La Quinta and Holiday Inn?
I’m in Australia. What time is it over there? Is it the 12th yet?
RENTING music? Ha.
As long as Apple keeps the iPod moving forward and updates iTunes and gives us good reasons to stay on users wont go anywhere else. MS is just glad to get Real out of the court and into the conference room where they can bleed them dry. The only other service that even touches iTMS is Napster, WMP 10 allows users to buy from several stores, the interesting thing to see is whether MS will include support for Reals AAC format or make them convert to WMA. I doubt Steve spends more than 2 minutes skimming this story on one of his RSS feeds
Maybe Real will take a leaf out of Sun’s book and think, “Thanks for the cash. Now who can we partner with to screw Microsoft?”
hilarious…
MS screws Real
Real whines..
MS pays Real many millions
Real and MS have a pint after the court day
Real “Hey let’s get together and screw Apple”
MS “Great! How do we do that…”
Real “Well, what you did to me.. just do that..”
MS “Don’t you think it’s a little soon.. we just lost 750 mil..”
Real “Okay, I’ll give you a couple days to think about it..”
Shaun,
Invoke Dashboard, drag a clock up and set the location to United States and Cupertino – now you can count down the seconds until the “One more thing” announcement/s tomorrow.
If Apple ever feels like it has competition to deal with, it won’t loose to WMA, Apple will simply license FairPlay. There will be no shortage of takers and WMA will again be dead in the water.
But first there needs to be some competition.
This might work out really well for Microsoft… if one of their partners makes an MP3 player with a built-in flux capacitor running at 1.21 gigawatts to take them back to 2001 when the market was still up for grabs. Game over, MS. Deal with it.
What’s a gigawatt?
Bah…
I think Real has been in bed with MS since the Harmony DRM episode, it’s obvious that they were already acting like a tool for Bill Gates, trying to screw Apple by spreading FUD about FairPlay.
Why should Apple fragment its market and let MS eat it piece by piece?
Licensing doesn’t always make sense. The current situation has nothing to do with MS licensing DOS/Windows to PC makers, those who think otherwise have a very narrow-minded and over-simplistic vision of the industry.
This deal will be made irrelevant after Apple’s announcement today.
As far as MS+Real: I really doubt that their corporate conflicts truly hindered their abilities to compete against Apple. It’s just that they’re both incompetent at trying to compete against Apple.
In this situation, all Mafiasoft and ‘Real’ have done is to put a public face on what has been going on in privately for quite some time. One could say that they have finally ‘come out of the closet’.
Mafiasoft has been funneling money into ‘Real’ for quite a while now; to keep it afloat so that MS could compete with Apple wthout actually “competing” with Apple. MS has been using Real as a ‘front’ for some time. Yet, in spite of all the hoopla that Real has attempted to muster, they continue to be an also-ran.
Rob ‘Krispy Kreme’ Glaser and Bill ‘I’ll Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse’ Gates have been been big buds for a while. Glad to see that they’re finally coming ‘out’.
MaWo, ‘party’. As in, MS and Real think that they are going to get one started, but no one will show up (except for MS and Real employees).
I feel compelled to mention that it is quite easy to plug another MP3 player into my Mac and download tunes with drag and drop. I was amazed when iTunes recognized my 2 year old Rio without having to install any “drivers”. Of course, the Rio sits in the drawer now while I listen to my iPod, but that’s not the point.
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Apple’s greatest weakness is its strategy of customer lock in. The company does all it can to make sure people who buy music from its service, play it on the iPod. That’s a mistake,” Gonsalves writes.
And if Gonsalves were an oracle, he’d be living off the profits of his trades in Apple stock instead of writing Microshaft’s spiel. I wonder if his nose smells of Ballmer’s skidmarks.