RealNetworks Sues Microsoft Over Antitrust Issues 491
jamacdon writes "Yahoo! has an article about RealNetworks Inc. filing an antitrust suit against Microsoft, claiming that MS has violated antitrust laws. This claim appears to revolve around how PC makers are restricted from including competing media players. Very similiar to the Internet Explorer issue, but different content. Will the results be the same?"
Re:It might werk. (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, yer gettin' a Dell! (Score:3, Informative)
At least it's optional in the business computers. I really don't see that they have anything to complain about.
Re:Will the result be the same? (Score:4, Informative)
(Emphasis mine.) They were still very much alive when the lawsuit was started, however. Netscape was synonymous with the web for quite awhile there. It's funny how you say "netscape" now and people look at you like "what's that?"
Re:God... (Score:3, Informative)
No you don't. [mlin.net]
Funny that because... (Score:1, Informative)
In any case, realistically. How are Mediaplayer and Realplayer actually competing? There's a lot of content out there that requires one or the other player. Pulling QuickTime into the equation and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a machine that doesn't have all three players installed. I mean look at the BBC news [bbc.co.uk] site - all Realplayer... do they really think that people shut themselves off to content because of affiliation with a certain free player? I think not...
Personally I think the antitrust thing is getting way out of hand - go out and make deals with companies to use your player you retards! And of all the media players I have installed, Real is the one that tits me off, because it's so damn intrusive. Bastards.
Re:Is that really why Real Player died out... (Score:4, Informative)
I think that the real reason Real Player died out is more or less due to a lower quality program
That's for certain. I have Winamp, Musicmatch and iTunes on my PC, but I still refuse to load Real, even though BBC and other sites only offer video in Real format. Seems to me it will be hard to make a case for anti-trust when so many sites are exclusive to Real. Hmmm... Maybe Real is the monopolist! Seems ridiculous to accuse M$ of anti-trust issues when Dell puts Musicmatch on every consumer PC and Winamp and iTunes can be had with a few mouse clicks.
Re:It might werk. (Score:2, Informative)
No, it stays aroound forever, no matter what you do... It just hides when you tell it to go away.
Go uninstall WMP, and then install any application that depends on WMP... Yup, WMP is still around.
Re:It might werk. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:frivolous lawsuit (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't matter whether RealPlayer is crap, spyware, or what. If Microsoft used their monopoly position to strongarm PC manufacturers into not installing the product on their PCs, then this is indeed a violation of antitrust laws, and Microsoft should be prosecuted!
Re:It might werk. (Score:5, Informative)
OTH, I do not even bother with WMP anymore. Nine times of ten there is a message about a needed update, a needed verification, or some website that must be consulted. WMP is wonderful at delivering eyeballs to advertisers to or 'protecting' digital content. As far as efficiently delivering good enough content to consumers, it fails totally.
And I understand you may be talking about image quality or sound quality, but that is why I have quicktime.
Re:Microsoft suddenly everyone's positive cash flo (Score:4, Informative)
Real, at least for their server software is (or was...) almost entirely a Linux shop. Real helped Linux make inroads into the server market at a LOT of companies. I'm still under NDA so I'm only mentioning two of the ones I could find press releases for quickly, but this includes companies with great big satelite networks (PanAmSat for one), a couple of great big phone companies (like Deutshce Telecom)...
Real also helped a lot in the fight to get Linux drivers for a whole bunch of video capture cards...
...doesn't excuse the shit they pulled, but...
Re:Parent is a troll. (Score:3, Informative)
Companies change. (Score:3, Informative)
And yet now, with this tossup (WMP vs RealOne), I just realized that I currently use both a browser (Mozilla) and a media player (WinAmp) heavily funded by AOL.
Strange, how times can change.
Plenty of precedent for this.
For instance: Back before home computers, when minicomputers were young (and expensive), IBM was the monster. The "Immense Blue Mother". Locked competing peripheral manufacturers and mainframe makers out of the market. Other monopolistic offenses too numerous to go into here.
But that was a quarter century or more ago, and a lot has happened since. Like the time they opened their home-computer archetecture at the same time Apple closed theirs, spawning the PC Clone market and bringing the price of home computers far below that of the cheapest car.
Now they're pouring over a Billion Buck$ into open source and are the point team for defending the freedom of Linux and tempering the GPL in court. Meanwhile, SCO has gone from a Linux promoter to the dark side of the farce.
Cha-cha-cha-cha-CHAIN-GES!
Re:Actual letter to RealNetworks (Score:3, Informative)
RealPlayer lost because it is inferior (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree...
Have any of you used RealPlayer lately? While WMP 9 has been getting more and more functional in terms of quality and features (surround-sound media formats, HD-quality video, built-in ripping and encoding, a usable Media Library), RealPlayer has become progressively bloated, ad-ridden, and full of spy-ware. The fact that I have to search through the registry to disable the stupid "Real Message Center" background app is infuriating to me, and is the major reason why I avoid it and tell others to do the same.
First of all, why must the two be mutually exclusive? I have both of them installed on my PC quite happily. When I double-click on a RealMedia file, the Windows Shell launches RealPlayer. When I double-click on a WindowsMedia file, the shell launches WMP 9. How is this "lock-out"?
Second of all, how can there really be "lock-out" when there is so much competition in the Media Player market? Aside from iTunes for Windows, there is also Winamp 2/3/5, QuickTime, Sonique, Media Player Classic, and several other lesser-known ones. They all work great on Windows, and co-exist just fine with Media Player.
The only argument I see here is Real whining that Microsoft should have to distribute RealPlayer for them. In other words, Media Player has an unfair advantage because it ships with Windows. Well, duh. But now the government should protect RealPlayer because it is not installed with Windows?
Here's a suggestion for Real: Make a better player, and you'll gain market share the old-fashioned way. Through customers who WANT to use your software, not just because it's there.
Send here: public_relations@real.com (Score:3, Informative)
NO NO NO (Score:2, Informative)
people watch "Double Jeopardy" and they think they understand law...
If I were to steal from a store, and I was punished, and then I stole from them again, I would be again punished.
However, if i stole from a store, they punished me, and then later decided to punish me again, they could NOT.
If I kill a man, that doesn't mean I can never be tried for murder again, just not for the murder of that person more than once.
If I kept Netscape from competing, was tried and punished, then kept Real from competing, I could be tried and punished.
Re:Blah. Who to root for? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This is stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
Otherwise, you're right, this would be absurd. If the actual accusation were in fact the case, this would be essentially a smaller "browser war," but it clearly is not, as many Dell customers on Slashdot have attested.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blah. Who to root for? (Score:4, Informative)
I was working for a small fragment of Turner Broadcasting (owned by Time Warner) when the AOLTW merger happened. And I have to say from that experience, and from what else I've seen of AOL, they're not really evil. Chaotic Neutral, maybe.
Here's the thing... their main product sucks. It's dumped tons of people onto the internet that maybe we'd rather not have there. They've done their best to be the biggest, but mostly by littering our mailboxes, magazines, point-of-purchase displays, and what-have-you with coasters-I-mean-CDs.... which costs them money as much as it's a hassle for us.
They treat their employees fairly well, and have a basically honest and moral business philosophy. Their dealings with Time Warner, which were overly optimistic and misguided on both sides, were still up-front and didn't give me any ooky feeling. When we were directed to install AOL on every single computer in our office (bad, bad idea, and one they finally gave up on), their techs commiserated with ours over the difficulties of installing AOL in a network environment (the 6.0 install would hang if there was a network card installed. Always. Unless you installed 5.0 first.)
They're sort of like Electronic Arts... nice company to work for (in some ways), but I wouldn't want to do business with them. Though with AOL it seems to be general ineptitude balanced by blind luck, rather than anything malicious.
Re:It might werk.... DONT CLICK ON THAT LINK! (Score:4, Informative)
[mods shouldn't mod your stupid sig up along with you insightful comment.]
Re:It might werk. (Score:4, Informative)
Contrast this with Real: annoying to install(in one window, options that are on by default are listed BELOW disabled options, hiding them from view; no install-time option to disable the system tray icon), slower, more crash-prone...
There's no reason to use Real over WMP on a Windows platform except to view Real content. Real content sucks anyway compared to DivX, XVid, QT, or MPG, but fortunately it has been on the decline for a long time. We can only hope that it disappears completely.
The above is less true for QT, but since WMP is at least as good(I like it better -- less fluff), there's no reason to use it either except to play QT content. If it weren't for Real/QT[1] codec issues I could ditch both of their players completely. Mplayer on Linux supports all of them out of the box, thanks to whoever wrote the ebuild.
Re:RealPlayer lost because it is inferior (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't that the point? That Microsoft doesn't make any money out of WMP, while Real's business is selling their player software and subscription? Microsoft can jack up price for Windows because they are a monopoly, they can literally enforce that OEMs don't negotiate with Real and forbid them to distribute RealPlayer while theirs comes preinstalled. Those facts are very close to Netscape's case.
How is this relevant? You are saying "I don't like RealPlayer, therefore, laws should not apply." It's irrelevant whether you think RealPlayer is good software or not, or whether you recommend others to use it. That doesn't prevent Real from defending its rights when others abuse it.
Also exactly the case with Netscape which could easily be installed next to IE. That's not the issue. I am guessing one of the main issues would be whether MS is locking out RealPlayer by forcing OEMs not to negotiate with Real.
You are getting this all wrong. Not Microsoft. They are likely complaining that they can't enter into contracts and arrangements with OEMs because MS forcefully forbids OEMs to do so. That would be a misapplication of MS' monopoly power with their Windows OS.
Re:It might werk. (Score:5, Informative)
Helix (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.helixcommunity.org/ [helixcommunity.org]
Re:It might werk. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It might werk. (Score:2, Informative)
The reality is that while there are legitimate companies out there that make better or worse quality products still need to make money off their product in order to continue making that product and improving it while MS$ bundles their software with their OS, effectively making it FREE! Who wants to pay for something when they can get it for free? This forces other competing companies to look for other ways of making money. REAL went to advertising and such. I can't really blame them, even if it is annoying.
Bundle it with new PC's? That won't happen until M$ decides to start allowing OEM's to install the competition's software without it being a violation of their contract of exclusivity.
It *is* difficult to remove IE and WMP. I've gone through once about a year ago and tried to delete them, but it looks like the only things that were removed were the shortcuts on the desktop and the start menu. It's not worth the effor it takes to remove them. The most annoying part is that WMP tries to change the default application back to WMP after you changed it to something else.
When you get right down to it, Netscape went to crap only because they were unable to make the money needed to improve thier product. The same thing is happening to REAL.
I don't understand how people can form an opinion about legal matters, like this one, based on the quality of a product. Ristupulous!
Am I from an alternate universe? (Score:3, Informative)
I do not work for Real, but I am a fan of the technology. Honestly, take a 320x240@30fps clip and compress it to ISDN bitrates using every single major package, including MPEG-4 and DivX, and then tell me Real doesn't kick ass. Because for low-bitrate video, it really does kick major ass.
Re:Will the result be the same? (Score:3, Informative)
No. The PDF specifications have been basically open since more or less the very beginning. While they hold patents on the specification, they give the right to use the specs royalty free [cpan.org].
True enough, but the majority of people who buy Acrobat only care about creating PDFs. I don't know about the latest versions, but v4.x absolutely *stunk* for editing an already created PDF.
This fall at a tech conference I did a session on PDFs. The last part of the session was looking at alternatives for creating PDFs. At least one group attending was planning to ditch Adobe once they found out that Open Office can create PDFs on the fly. Like most users, they just want basic PDF creation features and don't even use the other ones.