Wall Street responded to news of the settlement and collaboration by sending RNWK soaring even before the market opened yesterday. Next step: what does it actually mean?
Charles Di Bona, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company (via NYT)”RealNetworks is now a media store, and Microsoft is a cash register on the back end, selling the underlying software.”
P.J. McNealy, analyst, American Technology Research (via Reuters): “Rhapsody is now an even stronger force to compete against Napster, AOL, Yahoo and MusicNet in the music field. It’s likely to be the No. 1 in subscription services in six months. … If Real is now in bed with MSN for search, it can’t make the folks at Google very happy.”
Michael McGuire, research director, Gartner (via vnuet.com): “Maybe a year ago this would be an unheard of alliance. But what Apple has done in the marketplace in the past 18 months has caused a lot of people to re-evaluate their competitive plans. … The threat is that if Apple becomes the de facto standard Microsoft cannot drive the innovation on its own platform. It is letting another company define what the PC can and cannot do.”
Michael Gartenberg, research director, Jupiter Media: “The question is: Can Microsoft work with a coalition with the various partners it has — that’s RealNetworks and Napster and Yahoo and people who are in the music player business like Creative and Samsung and SanDisk — to come up with an ecosystem that is as satisfying to consumers as the iPod and iTunes have been. I don’t see how this dramatically jump-starts the market one way or another.”
Kit Spring, analyst, Stifel Nicolaus (via Bloomberg): “It means a ton of cash for RealNetworks, it also looks like it increases the likelihood RealNetworks can survive on its own. The company will be a partner with Microsoft on a number of initiatives rather than only being a direct competitor.”
David Card, analyst, Jupiter Research:”This is a big deal for Real. It’s a medium deal for Microsoft. It’s hardly enough to dent Apple’s momentum.”
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