InternetNews.com: RealNetworks Goes Browsing With Mozilla

By Thor Olavsrud,
InternetNews.com

RealNetworks Inc. is
adding browser funtionality to a private-label version of its media
player, fueling speculation that its war with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT),
which many thought ended in March when RealNetworks agreed to add
support for Microsoft’s Windows Media format, may flare up
again.

RealNetworks (RNWK)
is using portions of Mozilla.org‘s open-source browser code
in a version of its media player and server created for Web
broadcaster Global Media.
The version lets RealNetworks’ system stream and display Web
elements, including HTML and Macromedia Flash animation files.
This allows Web radio stations and other content providers to
create player interfaces with a unique look and feel, similar to
the “skins” on the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Media
Player.

The Global Media player will use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer
browser if that browser is installed on a computer. Otherwise, it
will download the Mozilla-based browser.

As more audio and video content makes its way to the Web,
hybrids like the Global Media player are likely to erode
distinctions between browsers and media players. Microsoft is
already enlisting its market leading Internet Explorer browser in
efforts to close RealNetworks’ enormous lead in a heated battle for
control of the streaming media player and server market.

By incorporating browser functions in its media player,
RealNetworks could theoretically counter efforts by Microsoft and
others to build streaming functions directly into the browser.

For its part, RealNetworks denies that it has any designs on the
Web browsing market and said there are no plans to utilize the
HTML-reading capability of its custom build for Global Media in its
own version of the player.

“Are we turning our player into a browser? There is zero
intention to do that,” said Ben Rotholtz, general manager of
systems and tools in a statement. “Our system is capable of
streaming anything. The fact that we’re picking up HTML as a data
type just shows how rich (our system) is, but there’s zero value in
our becoming a browser. We’re really focused on multimedia.”

Winston Barta, Global Media’s vice president of business
development, said he is not concerned with whether or not
RealNetworks is trying to be a media player or a browser. “We can
send Web pages through our Real server into the player window, and
that’s the direction we’re going.”

“This is the Real system on crack,” he added.

Barta said Global Media wants to use the “enhanced
functionality” that standalone Web browsers offer, but he also said
the company has concrete plans to use the Real system to serve Web
pages that would let his company’s clients — radio stations and
other multimedia content sites — complete transactions through the
player interface.

Analysts said prospects for a Web-browsing media player are
mixed. Jeremy Schwartz, analyst with Forrester Research said
simplifying the tools that people use to interact with audio is
good for consumers. But he also said that devices that do too many
disparate things are not successful from a consumer point of
view.

Regardless of RealNetworks’ intentions for Web-browsing
capabilities, the company’s participation in the Mozilla software
development effort is a big win for Mozilla.

Mozilla, the first and highest-profile open-source project
launched and funded by a corporation, relies on paid employees of
America Online unit Netscape Communications and on volunteer
companies and individuals to develop the source code, or underlying
software, of Netscape’s Communicator browser.

In recent months, however,Mozilla has staged a rally in
attracting developers not on the AOL payroll, including people from
IBM, Intel, Liberate, NetObjects, Nokia, Red Hat and Sun
Microsystems.

“RealNetworks’ adopting the Mozilla code is a great example of
the use of the code in a range of products and appliances,” said
Mitchell Baker, whose title is “chief lizard wrangler” for Mozilla.
“It’s also a great example of the development momentum and
involvement that is going on presently.”

RealNetworks has come under pressure to open its own software,
but Rotholtz said the company has no intention to do that beyond
continuing to offer application programming interfaces —
programming shortcuts that let developers build on top of
applications like the RealSystem.

But Rotholtz does endorse Mozilla’s open-source effort.

“It’s a great cause,” Rotholtz said. “Thanks to Mozilla, people
have been able to go out and build new solutions and extend the
world of what people are able to do on the Web. One company alone
does not move the Internet along as the next mass medium.”