“Rob Glaser has made his peace with Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Now, the RealNetworks chief executive is turning up the rhetoric against another technology icon: Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET News. “At the Digital Living Conference here on Monday, Glaser told a packed hotel ballroom that Jobs & Co.’s refusal to make the iPod compatible with music services other than Apple’s iTunes was ‘pig-headedness.’ …These are heady times for Glaser and his Internet multimedia company, which announced in October that it had reached a favorable settlement with Microsoft on the $1 billion lawsuit RealNetworks filed in 2003. Under the deal, Microsoft agreed to pay $460 million in cash to settle the antitrust claims and will also pay $301 million to support RealNetworks’ music and game efforts.”
“‘We think Apple Computer, and Steve personally, are making a mistake by making the software proprietary,’ Glaser said, noting that RealNetworks would continue catering to users of Macintosh computers,” Sandoval reports. “‘There’s no reason we should penalize Apple customers for Steve’s pigheadeness.'” …Glaser called for the music industry to pressure Jobs into opening up the iPod to other online music vendors. ‘Steve makes for a good pinata because he’s taken a position against interoperability,’ Glaser said. These people ‘should be pressuring him to change because they have leverage over him. Apple being on its own in term of interoperability makes piracy more compelling for consumers. Because, hey, if I take all my MP3s from this illegal site or that illegal site, they’ll work on the iPod or anything else. Whereas if I buy them legitimately, they’ll only work at one place.'” Glaser said that consumers could blame Apple if they can’t hook up their music with their other digital content should such convergence become popular.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: To the porcine Rob Glaser, the irony of calling Steve Jobs “pigheaded” seems lost. At least Glaser’s always good for a laugh; at, not with. Glaser talks “interoperability,” but his service offers nothing to Mac users outside of streaming a handful of “free” songs buffering endlessly and trapped within a web browser. Apple’s iTunes is free for both Mac and Windows. Apple iPods work with both Mac and Windows. No other legal online music service is more “interoperable” than Apple’s; certainly not RealNetworks’ limited online outfit with its “Harmony” hack that has failed at least once in the past, not that anybody noticed until over a month and a half later. Rob Glaser is not even a footnote in the historical arenas that Steve Jobs headlines. Glaser’s trough has been filled recently by Microsoft; his confidence temporarily restored by the slop, it seems. Let’s wait see what he’ll oink when he quickly empties it once again. Glaser should resume his concentration on shoveling in the Krispy Kreme’s, which would prevent him from spewing out his nonsense. That’ll also help make his inevitable steamrolling at the hands of Apple’s Jobs all the more spectacular.
On October 27th, RealNetworks announced their earnings results for the quarter ended September 30, 2005. Real reported revenue of $82.2 million and net income of $11.2 million. Real’s music revenue totaled $25.0 million for the quarter.
On October 11th, Apple announced their earnings results for the quarter ended September 24, 2005. Apple reported revenue of $3.68 billion and net income of $430 million. Apple’s music revenue totaled $1.477 billion for the quarter.
In the last quarter, Apple matched Real’s entire quarterly revenue of $82.2 million in about the first 49 hours of the quarter. In the last quarter, Apple matched Real’s total quarterly net income of $11.2 million before enjoying a nice low-cal Vegan lunch on the 3rd day of the quarter. In the last quarter, Apple matched Real’s music revenue of $25 million right around the 36th hour of the quarter.
Related articles:
Real makes Rhapsody web-based, opens limited service to Mac users – December 05, 2005
Real’s Glaser: Apple iPod+iTunes ‘will lose out because of the share of market forces against them’ – October 29, 2005
Apple’s ‘pure genius’ will soon make iTunes’ portal the ‘number one destination on the Internet’ – July 26, 2005
Real CEO Glaser calls Apple ‘deceptive’ with iTunes Music Store – March 07, 2005
Real CEO pitches to half empty room at tech symposium; Apple draws standing-room-only crowd – February 25, 2005
RealNetworks’ CEO Rob Glaser grabs 3 of top 10 spots on ‘Dumbest Moments in Business 2005’ list – January 31, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
RealNetworks ‘Harmony’ stops working on iPods but nobody notices for a month and a half – December 15, 2004
Real’s CEO Glaser: ‘Harmony’ hack legal, Mac lovers are very sensitive to Apple criticism, and more – September 14, 2004
Analyst: Rob Glaser’s ill-advised war against Apple ‘is going to bite RealNetworks on the ass’ – August 30, 2004
RealNetwork’s CEO Glaser crashes Apple’s music party – July 30, 2004
Real CEO Glaser: Steve Jobs’ comments on Real ‘not succeeding’ are ‘ridiculously humorous’ – April 29, 2004
NY Times: Real CEO Glaser was close to having ‘iPod’ before Apple, but let it ‘slip through his fingers – April 24, 2004
Real’s CEO Glaser: Apple’s iPod/iTunes combo ‘threatens to turn off consumers’ – April 20, 2004
Jobs to Glaser: go pound sand – April 16, 2004
Real CEO Glaser begs Apple to make iPod play nice with other music services – March 24, 2004
Real CEO Glaser: ‘iTunes is only going to be used for playing songs you bought using the iTunes store – January 16, 2004
Takes one to know one!
That picture of Rob is priceless. Oh my oh my.
MDN Magic Word: “anyone” as is “Does anyone care about Real Networks anymore?”
Okay, so Apple created a fantastic product (the iPod), they also created software that works perfectly with it (iTunes). Due to some annoying CEO of a failing company complaining, Apple should conpletely turn around the success of a music revolution? I think not!
One word, Rob: treadmill.
MDN MW: “carbs”
He needs a life.
He truly looks a lot like Jabba the Hut in that photo!
Does anyone else see it to?
Come on people, don’t leave me hangin.
Gosh, if Steve Jobs has got the head, Rob sure has the rest of the pig, just look at the donuts.
Don’t pull any punches, MDN, tell us what you really think!
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great picture
IMHO, Steve Jobs should stand up and say “The day I can legitimately play an Xbox game on my Sony Playstation and vice vera, is the day I will open up the iPod”
That would shut Sony and Microsoft up.
As for Realnetworks, who gives a rats arse what they think? If the CEO of a company has to resort to name calling, then the company isn’t worth caring about.
Now if we could band together, with an email-blitz to all the major websites still using both WinCrap media and (un)-Real for streaming… and .. suggest .. (nicely) that there is a better alternative (out there) .. a solution which offers better streaming transmissions.. at much lower bandwidth baggage …
Do you think anyone will listen ?
That photo is a classic!
What’s the article about?? I can’t read it – I have tears in my eyes from laughing too much!!
MDN: Your response is true.
Dosen’t mean Job’s isn’t pig headed though.
I love Apple and love this site, so please don’t flame, but I see a bit of validity in the last four lines of this article. If Apple and all the other online music stores got together and made one universal DRM standard so that everything would work with everything else it would certainly put a hit on piracy. It does indeed make piracy more compelling because one DRM doesn’t work with another companies DRM. I’m not going to buy a song if its not going to work somewhere else. I’d imagine I’m not the only one here who really dislikes the fact that they can’t play their apple DRM’d music through other devices. Or one could buy a cool new toy that can stream the contents of their itunes music EXCEPT FOR THOSE DAMN DRM SONGS. Its not exactly all that great to me that I can’t play it through my Tivo like I can with unprotected files. I want convenience from the music I buy dammit, not headaches. One universal DRM would take care of that. So I think his idea is sound.
But THEN you have to look at it from Apples side. They have the best music player on the market bar none. They have the best Mac/PC jukebox on the market bar none. The best online music store bar none. On top of that they basically own me through that DRM. It would take me weeks to rip all of my DRM’d music and then put them back at this point.
So I’ll pretend I’m Glaser, “Awwww (oink) comeon Steve, sharing the DRM will help everyone and will really hurt piracy in the long run. Plus having more music stores will increase competition and drive the price of music down for consumers. See (oink) we just wanna help.”
Now I’ll be Steve, “Look pig, we have everything, I could basically own you right now if I wanted. If you want some done right go do it yourself, so get off of your fat ass and make your own player and software and then you can share the DRM with me and I will quickly destroy you with lower prices and even BETTER hardware. You have no chance and you know it. Grovel and beg for the DRM and sharing of my masterpiece known as ipod. Lick my black sneaker. [Glaser then licks his black sneaker]
End Scene.
So basically that ends that argument. The best music player comes as a package just as it should. The second best comes with a player and a lot of hope it will work with what you want it to.
Apple’s profits could easily tell you that they will forever say “Hell no we won’t go.”
Lastly, Mac Daily News take is kinda off here and misleading mainly on those last four lines of the article.
…said the swine form his wallow…
Feeze, you make a damn good argument right there. I didn’t even consider that. Excellent point. Although I do believe apple should allow CERTAIN other products to use their DRM (specifically the ones that advance Apples goals). I mean, the xbox does allow other devices and controllers to be attached to it for playing the DRM’d games. Thats all I’m really askin for.
Matt
Never mind the photo, the take is a pearl:
Glaser’s trough has been filled recently by Microsoft; his confidence temporarily restored by the slop
Right Col.Angus,
I think that’s the best MDM take ever and that this first line is a gem:-
“To the porcine Rob Glaser, the irony of calling Steve Jobs “pigheaded” seems lost.”
Apple if they can’t hook up their music with their other digital content should such convergence become popular.”
—–
hahahaha.. keep holding your breath there.. convergence of.. say.. iTunes songs with.. um.. a Creative MuVo?
Yeah.
Right.
Why bother?
Glaser needs to pressuring Microsoft to open THEIR DRM to the Macintosh. Why Microsoft hasn’t is totally beyond me. I assume they thought Apple would die this way, just like they don’t provide Access, FrontPage, VB or Works (to the benefit of FileMaker, RapidWeaver, RealBASIC & iPage, etc). It is ironic how this strategy has backfired big time.
Or Real should write their own DRM for Windows and Macintosh and licence it in competition to Apple and Microsoft, but sell it to the music stores cheaper than anyone else (they’ve got the cash). Then work with hardware markers to sell their music players at a loss until they beat Apple with FINALLY some decent competition.
If Apple open their DRM the first thing that’ll happen it every music store will try to modify it slightly so it becomes incompatible with each other. They want all the songs for themselves, not to interoperate. This is basic competition. And who suffers in the end – us. No, I don’t want Apple to licence their DRM. If I can’t get a song on iTMS there are plenty of other avenues other than propping up failing companies that can’t compete.
MW: ‘stay’ as in things should stay as they are…
“The day I can legitimately play an Xbox game on my Sony Playstation and vice vera, is the day I will open up the iPod”
Good one feeze! No argument about that.
Steve Jobs worked out a way to make digital music into a business.
Nobody else had worked out how to do it and to this day, nobody else makes money from it.
To do this, he had to make tough decisions and negotiate with some very hostile people.
People who succeed under such circumstances are often accused of being pig-headed, but the alternative is to be a loser.
Many music users do not want any DRM – arguments about compatible DRM are like arguments about what colour bicycle a fish should ride.
I do not buy DRM music – ever – I object to the presumption of music vendors that I am a criminal and will give away or otherwise abuse non DRMed music.
I buy CDs and that allows me to do what I like with music that I have purchased – if I want to rip it to a variety of formats so it will play on PSP, ipod, PC and whatever other devices I can, No limit on what devices or how many.
DRM just means presumed guilty by the record companies – I do not give my custom to someone who pre-supposes I am thieving scum.
If you loik at what cut of the profits the artists get from music (and their cut off digital is even worse than off CD) then the big music outfits are the big thieves here.
Jabba! Jabba the Hutt is that you? You eatin’ donuts man?
how one man can eat so many donuts is unbeleivable.