Link here. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9659973/

I for one am happy to see this happen.  RealNetworks has a # of good, smart folks who have learned from past mistakes (as does Microsoft) and we're all still learning.  Harmony is a good subscription service, though I personally prefer Yahoo! Music Engine for their personalization system.

In the end, I think this agreement will be good for consumers.  Rob hints that this could pave the way to better interoperability on everything from mobile phones to alternative OSes.  I don't have any data to back that up one way or another, but I do see this as a step in the right direction.  What will be telling in the coming year is whether a relationship of trust can be established between key members of the organizations.  Microsoft has done it with others (eg. AOL in Media Center). I think it can.