Friday, March 5, 2004
Real's Reality
Posted by Kent Pribbernow in "NEWS" @ 02:00 PM
C|Net has written a very interesting article on the perilous challenges faced by Real Networks, one of the internet's earliest multimedia pioneers. The article illustrates Real's illustrious, if chaotic, history and offers a blow by blow account of its journey.
The way I see it, Real was the victim of its own success. A classic tale of hubris. In the early days, Real Player was actually half decent streaming media software, before Rob Glaser turned it into the bloated Frankenstein Adware client that we see today. I refuse to even install it on any of my machines. Microsoft is winning, and winning fairly in my opinion. Although I strongly dislike the equally bloated and poorly designed Windows Media Player interface, Windows Media 9 technology is far superior to Real's offering, or even Apple's Quicktime.
The way I see it, Real was the victim of its own success. A classic tale of hubris. In the early days, Real Player was actually half decent streaming media software, before Rob Glaser turned it into the bloated Frankenstein Adware client that we see today. I refuse to even install it on any of my machines. Microsoft is winning, and winning fairly in my opinion. Although I strongly dislike the equally bloated and poorly designed Windows Media Player interface, Windows Media 9 technology is far superior to Real's offering, or even Apple's Quicktime.
