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.
2 responses to “Microsoft and RealNetworks settle for $761M”
"Rob hints that this could pave the way to better interoperability on everything from mobile phones to alternative OSes. " rob is only saying this as otherwise, they’re dead. they should’ve disappeared a long time ago as they offer no value beyond what others in the marketplace already offer. do we really need yet another codec scheme, another subscription service, etc.? MS should never have paid real off as they have, but the downside of having to pay even more $ or waste more time on this was also pointless… btw – this is the most money real has made in their existence – kind of funny
That’s really a great news. I’m looking forward to know more about it.