Whereas I devoted a significant amount of research and analysis to the US government's antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, I've treated the European Union's deliberations over the same as little more than a footnote to the whole Microsoft monopoly saga. But, in light of Microsoft's highly unsubstantiated argument to the EU for a less burdensome settlement reported by Reuters, I felt as though that footnote is now worthy of promotion and investigation.
While Microsoft's antitrust dust is settling in the United States, EU regulators are still in a pre-settlement phase, trying to determine what remedies, if any, to Microsoft's alleged monopolistic practices should be ordered.
One remedy under consideration is a requirement that Microsoft remove the Windows Media Player (WMP) from the versions of Windows that are distributed within the European Union's jurisdiction. Many government regulators and Microsoft's competitors believe that when the dominant desktop operating (Windows) ships with other Microsoft applications such as WMP, the competition to those applications (such as RealNetworks RealPlayer) is unfairly stifled. RealNetworks apparently sees it that way. Last month, claiming that Microsoft's predatory practices resulted in substantial loss of revenue, the company slapped Microsoft with a $1bn lawsuit.
The media player issue is equally important and strikingly similar to two other issues -- those regarding Internet Explorer and Java -- which were central to the antitrust proceedings against Microsoft because of the key role that developers play in establishing market preferences.
In the case of media players, the EU is intensely interested in the assumption that when a default media playing technology, such as WMP, exists in Windows, end users will establish a preference for that media player. As a result, content developers respond to that preference by publishing content in that player's format before publishing it in other formats, if at all. The thinking is that content developer resources are best spent on the biggest target before considering others. Whereas most players support common media formats such as MP3 and MPEG for playing music or video, they are incompatible when it comes to customising the presentation of streaming media, and in particular, making the content interactive (something rich content publishers like to do).
Talkback
The reason REAL cannot compete with MS Media Player isn't because MS Media player comes on the system - it's because REAL has an ages-old history of hijacking media file associations, sucking up CPU cycles with their tool-tray widget (that they do not allow you to disable in setup and hide from the user every way they can in the preferences) and (worse of all) delivering SPYWARE with their installer and sticking ADVERTISEMENTS all over the user's desktop.
I rarely use Media Player, and it's been that way for years. For a long time it was Sasami, and the last year or more it's been Zoom Player - both EXCELLENT products that interface with the underlying media player structure (just as REAL does when it plays Windows Media files) and have gorgeous user interfaces.
You want to see Windows without all those media gadgets? Look at the state of Linux desktops in regards to multimedia content; with no underlying OS support for ANY standards at all you end up with a needlessly complicated cabal of media stream widgets, none of which can speak with one another. Stripping Media Player from windows would leave the EU with essentially ONE platform upon which common users would be able to fend for themselves when it comes to installing and using a variety of media applications: APPLE.
Do you really think the "solution" lies in switching from one proprietary "monopoly" to another?
Real has no market share because Real sucks. In spite of their grand talk about "embracing the open community" their codecs remain firmly patented and their "openness" amounts to nothing more than window dressing. If REAL would walk the walk like they talk the talk there'd be no stopping them. let them lie in the grave they dug themselves - and if they awaken, let them dig their way out without dragging the rest of us into that trench with them.
Another reason REAL is dead in the water is that their audio codecs don't sound as good as others do at this point in time. Sure they were one of the "first on the block" with streaming; but they haven't kept up with the audio quality. MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis all sound better than REAL, for a given data bandwidth. What's more, their "surestream" technology has terribly insufficient buffer sizes, so that the system is constantly "upshifting" and "downshifting" with resulting terrible bings, pops, and dead air. If REAL had a competitive product (and if they made it reasonably easy to use, as another poster pointed out) then I would feel sorry for them. But REAL has blown it (and I believed in them strongly enough to buy their stock "way back when") and they have nothing competitive to offer now. Sic transit gloria mundi.