Real And Microsoft Close to Settlement

pdirty writes "Real networks may be close to winning a $750 million settlement agreement with Microsoft following Real's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. The deal would include Microsoft paying cash as well as advertising for Real services, and products through channels such as MSN. Real is holding a conference call after the closing bell today to announce the details." From the article: "The deal follows on the heels of the European Commission appointing a watchdog last week to monitor Microsoft's compliance with its antitrust ruling. The pact is the latest in a string of payments by Microsoft to settle charges, including $750 million in 2003 to Time Warner to end charges about Microsoft acting to suppress Netscape, and $1.95 billion to Sun Microsystems to settle a suit by Sun over Microsoft's use of incompatible Java technology."

Comments

what about iTunes?

[Afecks]

OS X comes with iTunes yet there is no foul play there...

Re:what about iTunes?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Well see MS was not declared a monopoly until court pronounced it as such. So what are companies supposed to do until then?

Your first sentence is kind of silly. MS was a monopoly long before they were found to be such by the courts. A company is legally a monopoly based upon their effect on the market, which MS was well aware of.

The way I look at it, if Apple bundles iTunes with their OS, and MS competes with them, they should be allowed to do the same.

Ahh, but Apple does not compete with them. Apple sells computers and bundles an OS as incentive. Sure they sell boxed sets of their OS, but in very small numbers and only as upgrades to existing customers who bought a computer. Other companies also sell computers with OS's, or support with OS's or services with OS's. No one sells OS's by themselves to be bundled with computers because one company has locked everyone else out of that market.

Of course the problem is how to protect companies like Real wants to compete with Apple and MS, on particular part of their OS. There are no good answers that treats everyone fairly.

We have a tried and true method for that, it is called a fair market. You see Apple can sell whatever they want on whatever platform they want. They can include code to eliminate Real on their OS. That is just fine, because their is nothing stopping Real from getting into the OS and computer hardware business, or partnering with others in that business and competing with Apple. The problem only occurs when you run into a monopoly. Real can't create their own OS and compete with Windows on fair ground, because MS's market share, business contracts, and technological mechanisms prevent them from doing so. Everyone is playing by the same rules here and you can damn well bet MS knew about antitrust laws long before they were in any danger of breaking them. They chose to go for lock-in, intentionally break the laws, and settle the lawsuits as their business model. That is their choice, and they are not deserving of any sympathy for the results of that choice.

Dueling Slashdot articles

[RobertB-DC]

A bit of Slashdot man-behind-the-curtain trivia. Before this article went live, subscribers saw it on the front page. They also saw this article: Real Wins Against Microsoft, posted by CmdrTaco himself. The Zonk version won out, and the CmdrTaco story became one of my "Ghosts of Slashdot".

Can you imagine the flames if both articles had gone live? Back-to-back dupes aren't unknown, but there's usually at least a few minutes between them :)

Last I checked

[kinglink]

Real media played about as unfairly as Microsoft. If I remember right once something is put as a RM, it's as safe as a PDF, you can share it but you can't copy it easily (yes I know there's ways to copy anything but there's no converter from RM to change it back to a AVI from real, and most out there are hack jobs, that the DMCA would be able to stop)

Even Apple has offered a Movie convert from Mov to AVI but I still don't know if Real offers the same. And that just makes the format almost worthless.

In addition Real's software has been pretty shoddy for a long time, I remember about ten years ago, about the only reason people still used it then was that there was no other option when stuff was in the format. Now we have many options on what to put it into, I don't see many RMs around except for feeds, (which is what they excel at). Perhaps their problems arn't from Microsoft but from their lack of quality for so long.

they both suck

[Anonymous Coward]

They both suck. Realplay though possible modem usable was so attoracias (2003) that my online prof just recorded lectures to Mp3 kep them small (about a meg per segment). That serously KFA'd! Wasn't their something out their like yamohaa or some thing that was realplayeresk but didn't suck ass?

Re:Oh, great

[m50d]

OS X includes iTunes, and nobody complains about that.

In case you didn't notice, Apple could eat dead babies and still get love and justifications from the slashdot crowd.

Most Linux distros include XMMS, and nobody cries.

Firstly, most of them include a variety of players, often including realplayer. Secondly, none of them is trying to make money off their streaming server.

RealNetworks has done more damage to themselves than anyone else could, through the overpromotion of unstable software, with annoying ads, and 192352398235 different taskbar crapplets that nobody wants.

Nevertheless, MS did a lot of damage to them. Look at an "average joe"'s desktop machine for proof that unstable software with annoying ads and horrible taskbar applets can succeed enormously.

After most streaming sources went to either streaming MP3 or WMA, Real pretty much died.

Remind me when that happened? I've yet to see a site that doesn't at least offer real as an option for streaming videos, and for music if it supports wma it will almost certainly support real.

They lost a market they created due to poor management and bad software. Nobody cares about them anymore, and frankly, I wish they'd just get bought or disappear alltogether.

The market is still there. They're the only people even offering a client for Linux. They've learnt from their mistakes, I know a lot of people will never forgive them for the travesty that was realplayer 8 but the modern player is actually pretty good, certainly compared to the alternatives. And no matter how bad you think they are, they deserve justice when they are wronged like anyone else.

Re:Oh Oh

[The Lynxpro]

"And Microsoft should really consider advertising for Mozilla too."

Not really far fetched since Microsoft advertises on Slashdot, which is probably the world's largest collection of rabid anti-Microsofties posting on the net. :)

Rob said it...Re:Mac/Linux

[redwoodtree]

In the press conference, Rob literally said "We will be releasing Rhapsody to Mac and Linux in the web browser." My mouth about hit the table.

If Real does release that (and it works..which are two big IFs) then they will be the first subscription music service on the Mac. They might actually gain some street cred with the linux/mac crowd and some more mind share of subscription service.

Knowing Real, they'll screw it up.

Re:Unfortunatly

[TheNetAvenger]

Then why couldn't MS have beaten them by playing fair? Say what you like about them, Real were wronged here and deserve compensation, no matter how bad whatever else they've done.

Then why in the deal would Real want access to Microsoft's Media technologies and codecs? If Real knew they had the best product, they wouldn't have even requested this in the settlement.

Quote from article on MSNBC, "RealNetworks will also get licenses and commitments that give it long-term access to Windows Media technologies to enhance the Real Player software."

Think People, Real was not the ONLY competing product, they just had enough money to sue the easy cash cow. What about tons of other pieces of software that 'should' have been affected and weren't. Like Winamp? Winamp is a popular as it has EVER been. They made a product a lot of people liked better, period.

I work for a company that also makes products that 'compete' with Microsoft, yet their developer resources and even their support people are willing to help our company at any time.

Real knew their products were crap, the guy that started Real was 'from Microsoft' taking some Microsoft technology with him, and in the end, Real told Microsoft to spit and step in it when Real had the popularity.

Microsoft said, ok, fine we will... Real all but died.

(See if people did think, they would REMEMBER that Real Player WAS BUNDLED with Microsoft Windows Prior to 1999. - Real screwed themselves.)

Re:Changes coming to windows

[aaronl]

Investigate "Real Alternative". It installs the Real Media DirectShow codecs and then anything can play the files back.