RealNetworks Halves Music Prices But Move to Confront Apple Will Increase Company&#39;s Loss
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RealNetworks on Tuesday started a promotion that halves the price of its digital music offerings as part of a strategy to force its way onto Apple Computer&#39;s popular iPod digital music player.
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InfoWorld - NBC Universal&#39;s pullout from the iTunes online store is more of a loss for Apple and points to fierce resistance among media companies to potential Apple dominance of online video sales, an industry analyst said.
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They didnât make this announcement with quite as much fanfare as when they cut their price per download at their online music store to just 49 cents, but RealNetworks is ending that half-price âFreedom of Choiceâ promotion theyâve been running for
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Apple has responded to a midnight Wednesday deadline in relation to antitrust concerns over the pricing of songs on its iTunes online music store across different European countries. The European Commission has expressed concerns about Apple setting unfair iTunes pricing prohibiting users in one country from downloading music from a website intended to serve another. A European commission spokesperson said: "They answered yesterday and we are studying [the response] carefully at this point."
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RealNetworks Inc. is ending a temporary promotion that slashed the price of its downloadable songs to 49 cents, but bargain hunters will still be able to find some deals at its online music store.
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CUPERTINO, Calif. Apple Computer is trying to stop RealNetworks from taking a bite out of the iPod market. Apple is blocking the technology used by RealNetworks Harmony music downloading service.
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Hostilities started in late July, when Real cracked Apple&#39;s FairPlay code, meaning songs bought from the RealPlayer Music Store could be played on the iPod - a move that went down very badly over at Apple. Real then decided to ratchet up the pressure by ...
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RealNetworks is taking over Yahooâs music subscription service. It hopes that as one of the last paid services standing it will better be able to promote the concept.
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The price of music downloads has been a contentious issue among fans in the UK, who are quick to point out the pricing scheme often means that downloading a full album costs more than buying the CD.
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Apple Computer has updated the software for some of its iPod digital media players so that songs bought from RealNetworks won&#39;t play.
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(InfoWorld) - Apple Computer's recent introduction of several new iPods shows the company is looking for better profit margins, not gaining market share, according to researcher Gartner. And the move could boost its rivals. The top sign Apple is going for the green is its lack of aggressive pricing, according to Gartner analysts Joseph Unsworth and Jon Erensen in a Monday report. The second-generation iPod Shuffle, for example, could have been priced closer to $49 to stimulate demand from users, since the cost of materials going into it amounts to only $30, the analysts said. Instead, the shuffle is priced at $79. The company could have also priced the new 8GB product lower than $249, since its materials only cost $130, Gartner said, the same with its 4GB, which at $199 is far higher than the $90 worth of materials inside, and the 2GB version, which is $149 and is made from materials costing only $70. The two Gartner researchers even lamented Apple's decision to discontinue the 1GB nano, which they say could have been a nice mass-market item for around $99. "Apple is in a secure position atop the portable media player market and has decided to strategically focus on its margin this time," the analysts said. Indeed, AppleÂ continued to leadÂ the U.S. digital music player market in the second quarter with a 75.6 percent share, according to the NPD Group, followed at a very distant second by SanDisk at 9.7 percent and Creative TechnologyÂ in third with 4.3 percent of the market. But a lack of revolutionary new functions in the latest lineup of iPods coupled with just a small price reduction could give rivals,Â Microsoft and its new ZuneÂ in particular, room to gain market share this year. For one thing, Apple's rivals may not be affected by strained component supplies, since Apple won't be taking as much as it could, according to Gartner. The market researcher had predicted a shortage of NAND flash memory chips in the fourth quarter due to strong sales of portable media players, USB (universal serial bus) flash drives, and other products requiring the chips. While it still forecasts a shortage, the situation won't be as severe as previously thought, the analysts said, perhaps a 3 percent shortfall rather than the 4.6 percent shortage originally predicted. NAND flash, one of the key data storage components for iPods, is 60 percent cheaper than last year on average, and with Apple's huge investment in NAND companies, it could have priced its iPods more aggressively to keep its market share, the analysts said. In addition, Apple's rivals won't have to work so hard this year to keep up with the iPod because the new lineup does not redefine the portable media player market like it did last year, Gartner said. And finally, the company only trimmed nano prices by $50, different from the past when the company's aggressive price cuts forced competitors to lower prices and increase storage capacity to compete. Jill Than, a spokeswoman for Apple in Hong Kong, declined to immediately comment.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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RealNetworks today is slashing the price of a digital download to 49 cents a song from 99 cents - a bold move in the war over digital music.
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With competition heating up in the online music business, RealNetworks, Inc. slashed prices Tuesday for downloading music.
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[Seattle | Reuters News Service, 10 September 2004] - RealNetworks is ending its 49c-per-song music download service but will keep the promotional prices in place for top 10 songs, the Internet media and software company said yesterday.
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We were already pretty sure that Apple and NBC fell out over the prices of TV shows on iTunes, but the head of NBC apparently asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue as well.
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Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) was outraged when RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK) first announced its intentions to go after its iTunes and iPod market share. It should not have been: Its customers, apparently, are more than willing to go to bat for Apple.
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RealNetworks rings up a deal to broaden its digital wings.