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Apple Rejects RealNetwork's Pleas
TheJoKell writes "In a followup to a previous article, Apple has denied a meeting with Rob Glaser, Chief Executive of Real Networks, to discuss an alliance between the two companies. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs said, 'The iPod already works with the No. 1 music service in the world, and the iTunes Music Store works with the No. 1 digital-music player in the world. The No. 2s are so far behind already. Why would we want to work with No. 2?'"
Real offered Apple zero in return, they just wanted to free ride on the success of the iPod. At least the HP deal will sell iPods and direct people to the iTMS.
So, if microsoft says: why would we work with #2 and stop making office for macs? And if IBM says: why would we work with the #2 processos archeteture (powerpc)? ANd if users say: why would we buy those macs that are the #3 (linux is surpassing macs)? Man! Can't we please leran to get a bit humble?
Wow. I couldn't even consider them on a top 5 list...
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I may have had too many beers to see the obvious, but why wouldn't Apple want to do this? If it only meant that Real would convert it's music to be compatible with Fairplay then wouldn't that mean any customers of Real's music service would need to buy an iPod to play their music on the go since .m4p files are only playable on iPods? Isn't that why iTMS exists, to sell iPods? What's wrong with another online store that would, essentially, help sell iPods?
A rotten apple in the barrel spoils the bunch they say.
/.) over their "free" player that's hard to find on their site. The "Hidden" options in the installer that you have to scroll down too see, and gouging stream providers on using their tools.
Real has been under a lot of scrutiny (especially here on
I think Jobs just didn't want to soil apples image.
What, exactly, does Microsoft have to offer in this area?
WMA? Sure, it's the "standard" for all the other services--whose combined sales pale in comparison to Apple's. It's also the "standard" for the other players, whose--again, combine--sales pale in comparison to the iPod.
What about Microsoft's own music download service? As yet, it's vaporware. When and if it does come out, you can bet it won't hold a candle to the ease of use and quality of service of the iTMS. It will also use WMA--see above. By the time MS is ready to launch it, though, it's likely that most non-iTMS music download services will be failing, and the remaining ones will be consolidating.
Sorry, but in this case Apple has out-Microsofted Microsoft.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
In short, teaming up with Real can only hurt Apple, or at least the perception of Apple.
I'm sure this page will fill up soon enough with near-flames about the arrogance of Apple and how it lost them the computer market last time and so on. What most of the people making those comments don't realize is that the Mac never had the market share that the iPod does. Apple really does dominate this market, and can afford to act like Microsoft for several years, at least. (That Microsoft is intent on entering the market soon does not necessarily mean they will be successful at taking it over, as the XBox has shown.)
Licensing to Real would have two negative effects that Apple should rightly be concerned about. First, this would at best steal sales that would otherwise have gone to the iTMS, and, while the bulk of the profits come from the iPod itself, the iTMS can only be helped by increased traffic. (In particular, economies of scale are probably rather important--certainly with respect to the infrastructure, possibly the underlying music licensing as well.) Secondly, Real has a long reputation as obnoxious crap that works poorly and pushes ads at the user all the time. Associating with them could taint Apple's image, which is a valuable commodity. If Real's store was anything other than flawless, it could damage the perception of how easy to use the iPod is, hurting long-term sales and brand image.
Really, Steve Jobs can decide what he wants. But it's bad PR to be that cocky. He might as well shout out, "I'm king of the hill, try to knock me off!" Here's a hint in PR, Steve: act contrite and humble even as you crush your opponents. They won't realize what you're doing until it's too late. But if you are unapologetically domineering, you'll find you get three responses:
Hmmm. I wonder which one is Microsoft? And which one is Real?
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
It is not arrogance. In what way is Real number 2 even? Things could have been different for Real, there was a time when they were at the forefront of streaming technology. They lost this spot in my eyes when the began to lose focus an instead of concentrating on technology and finding sustainable revenue streams, went for the cheap shots of getting people to pay for what others offered for free, making it very difficult to find the free version of their product, and above all loading people's desktop with tons of garbage. I have lived life without the Real player and when a site does not give me a choice, I show them my contempt by leaving the site.
So....Apple is hammered on for years barely hanging on. Jobs comes back, stabilizes the company, gets it moving again, delivers a great *nix OS and a sh&tload of great apps (iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes, Final Cut, iMovie) plus the most lusted after digital audio player coupled with an online music store that hits the sweet spot, is getting great buzz and people love it.
Finally....Apple has a competitive advantage in *something* and you get after him for being arrogant!?!
Oh pleez...
This is just a pissing contest. It started with Glaser insulting Jobs and calling him "afraid". Jobs just returned the favor by reminding Glaser of his place.
Lots of people are comparing this to licensing the OS or not. Of course that's a flawed analogy because
1) the OS is a whole platform that needs developers, etc... All the iPod needs is songs
2) it ignores the real reasons for the failure of MacOS which had nothing to do with licensing
The bottom line is that Real has nothing to offer at the table. So Glaser tries to goad Jobs into cutting a deal by offering insults and threats. Jobs is not the type to fall for that.
This sounds to me as meaningless as the argument that if Macs of Linux boxes were more popular they would surely have more viruses.
The simple answer is: Apple is not a monopoly, period. If they were dominant, no-one knows what they would be doing. And so far I haven't seen any behaviour that would make me think they wouldn't play by the rules if they were dominant.
And seriously, what would Apple ever want from Real Networks? The guys at Real Networks are loosing a lot of customers for making their free player too hard to find, and by putting way too many ads around. Why would Apple want to have anything to do with them now?
Maybe the words were a bit harsh, but they did make sense.
Diego Rey
diegoT
Actually, it happens all the time. After all, you think Gateway and Dell really make their own TVs? :-)
On a more serious note, HP licenses their handheld designs to a number of folks, Philips never would have gotten very far without licensing CD player designs, Fraunhofer and Unisys did quite well licensing their respective compression technologies, Samsung licensed the design of their laptops to Best Buy (to create the "VPR Matrix" line of machines), and one of the real reasons VHS beat out Beta was that Sony (like Apple) refused to license Beta widely (I think they did, but only in a very limited fashion).
It happens even more in the vertical markets.
Jobs was kicked out of Apple right after the Mac shipped. Even when he was there, he was *not* the CEO and was *not* in charge of those type of decisions. In the 80s, Jobs was never the president or CEO of Apple once they got funding. He was the chairman of the board and the largest stockholder and he had enough power to be able to contribute to some projects (Apple III, Lisa, and the Mac), he was actually *kicked off* the Lisa project before taking over the Mac project. You're blaming jobs for a decision he didn't make and had no control over.
Personally, I think that if he had been given absolute control over Apple in the 80s, things would probably have turned out better for Apple. I have no evidence to back that up obviously.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Pay attention, boy. As several other posts around here have mentioned:
Apple announced earnings last Wednesday (4/14) after market close. In the conference call, Apple announced that iTMS made money. Apple's CFO announced that iTMS made money. Not some reporter - an Apple executive. Not 3 months ago in the Journal, 2 days ago in a conference call with analysts.
From MacNN:
"Responding to iTunes song pricing, Apple said that the higher-than expected pricing on some albums was due to the disparity in pricing from different labels, but the the "vast majority" of the albums remain at $9.99 and songs remain at $0.99. Apple said the iTunes Music store showed a small profit in the March quarter and looked promising for the company. The company said it expected to provide an update on the iTunes Music Sales and the Pepsi promotion closer to the First Anniversary of the iTunes Store (end of April). "
Hey, it's your money and your 'utility' whether the iPod or the Zen suits you better.
Hold an iPod, and then hold a Zen, and make your own decision. The iPod isn't winning awards because it's more expensive than the Zen, smaller capacity than the Zen, or uglier than the Zen, it's winning awards and accolades because it's user experience is better (weight, UI, size, integration, usability).
If those things don't matter to you... than they don't matter to you.
They just happen to matter to a lot of the population ^^
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