RealNetworks vs iTunes

I wonder if Real isn't trying, desperately, to get bought. They're
really between a rock (Microsoft and WMV) and a hard place (iTunes).
They had an early technology lead, but blew it by "productizing"
instead of bulking up on content people care about.

I'm sure it's not lost on Real's executives that both MS and Apple
could buy Real for cash.

--
Andrew Laurence
atlaurenuci.edu

[I can't tell you how much I don't want this to devolve into a discussion of market share figures, which are largely meaningless anyway. As a result, I'm going to be extremely quick to reject any additional discussion of market share in this thread, other than unique references to current figures. -Adam]

>Seems to me that everyone is missing the point for Apple's
>consternation. Blinded by the iPod. Apple does not just want to
>sell iPods. The fact that they opened up iTunes and the iPod to PC
>users was to let them see what a good experience the combination of
>Apple software and hardware is. The purpose is to sell Macs, the
>switch campaign. The just announced sales figures show that Apple
>has moved from 7th place to 2nd place in PC sales in one year with
>share moving from 3.2% to 8%. Their strategy is working and if Real
>is successful with their PC only Harmony it will completely derail
>that strategy.

Your figures (for PC sales ranking) might be disputable.

The report I have (from IDC) shows Apple, as of the 2nd quarter of
2004, still mired in 5th place with a 3.7% market share in the U.S.
after showing a 9.3% annual growth. #1 Dell had 32.9% market share
after showing a 16.2% growth. On a worldwide basis, Apple ranked
even lower than 5th place.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=pr2004_07_14_153325

Can you document your figures?

H.

I agree with Winsor's assessment, although I haven't heard that 8% figure anywhere. Can you give any attribution? Also, although it's been around for years and seems to be ubiquitous, the RealPlayer user experience has always been very, very frustrating (at least for me). I don't think Apple would like their products associated with that.

Brian

On 8/6/04 8:48 AM, "Andrew Laurence" <atlaurenes.nacs.uci.edu> wrote:

> I wonder if Real isn't trying, desperately, to get bought. They're
> really between a rock (Microsoft and WMV) and a hard place (iTunes).
> They had an early technology lead, but blew it by "productizing"
> instead of bulking up on content people care about.
>
> I'm sure it's not lost on Real's executives that both MS and Apple
> could buy Real for cash.

I just wonder why more news outlets haven't pointed out the glaring
hypocrisy in Real's "We're for choice" schtick, since Harmony is a
Windows-only product.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

At 1:07 PM -0700 08/06/2004, John C. Welch wrote:
>I just wonder why more news outlets haven't pointed out the glaring
>hypocrisy in Real's "We're for choice" schtick, since Harmony is a
>Windows-only product.

There's also been some grumbling about the irony Real's now preaching
about "choice" when, for years, it has fought tooth and nail to
control who can serve and play Real-encoded content.

And, well, plus there's some annoyance about the spyware in (some?
all?) Real's player software.

At 6:48 AM -0700 08/06/2004, Andrew Laurence wrote:
>I wonder if Real isn't trying, desperately, to get bought.

This theory gets floated once in a while. I tend to discount it
because it hasn't been true when it's bubbled up at various points
over the last five or so years. But I can understand why it keeps
re-appearing in the Mac community: you have to remember we're locked
out of a good portion of Real's Windows-focused market strategy. For
instance, Rhapsody (which doesn't support Macs) isn't really an iTMS
equivalent: you don't buy music there, you subscribe to an
all-you-can-eat service.

Not owning a PC (and, despite being a musician, not being much at all
interested in the "digital music revolution" hooey) my hands-on
experience with Rhapsody has been limited to less than half an hour
on a colleague's Windows box. But Rhapsody's content model is quite
different from iTunes: the database isn't centered so much on albums
or tracks (although you can certainly get to those quickly) as
artists, genres, related artists, influences, etc. You don't buy
things or listen to annoying 30-second previews, you just play
whatever you want to play. Want a track on CD? It's probably cheaper
than iTunes (but you *are* paying a monthly fee on top of that.)
Rhapsody is a different model and, speaking as someone who gets one
of those uncontrollable facial-ticks-of-annoyance whenever I look at
the iTunes Music Store, I can see how it might be appealing to a
portion of the music-consuming market.

But yeah: I find aspects of Real's revenue model(s) difficult to wrap
my brain around.

gd
--
Geoff Duncan TidBITS Technical Editor <http://www.tidbits.com/>