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To: Dealer who wrote (25663)	7/17/2000 4:28:53 PM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35685

RNWK--Monday July 17 3:40 PM ET Microsoft Media Player Takes Aim at RealNetworks SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) on Monday released the ``gold,'' or final, version of its latest software for recording, storing and playing music on a computer, turning up the heat on crosstown rival RealNetworks Inc. (NasdaqNM:RNWK - news). The seventh incarnation of the Windows Media Player has been available as a test product for months. Microsoft has now unveiled the finished software, along with a set of back-end digital media tools, and made a formal announcement with the EMI music label of Britain's EMI Group Plc (EMI.L) to release more than 100 albums online. The multimedia player lets users record songs off CDs or download them from the Internet. Songs can then be organized into playlists and transferred to a portable digital music device or recorded on a CD. ``It's targeted at a different audience than digital audio players that have come before. It's designed so my father could enjoy digital audio,'' Kevin Unangst, group product manager for Microsoft's digital media division, said in a recent interview. Songs can be recorded in the popular MP3 format or in Microsoft's own Windows Media format. Those formats squeeze a song down to a fraction of its former size so it takes up less room on a hard drive, without much loss of sound quality. The software can also play video using the Windows Media format. The final player marks Microsoft's biggest push so far into digital media software, which is shaping up as a hotly contested market as more and more computer users turn to the Internet and their machines as sources of entertainment. Seattle-based RealNetworks has been the industry leader and has registered more than 115 million copies of its RealPlayer software for playing streaming audio and video, as well as more than 30 million copies of RealJukebox for storing and playing music. But Microsoft and Real are pursuing vastly different strategies to conquer the market. Real is beefing up its software with support for virtually any kind of digital media format, from its own G2 technology to those from Sony Corp. (6758.T) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news), and even Microsoft. Microsoft's software, on the other hand, only plays Windows Media and MP3, but the company is offering rich incentives to Web sites and companies to use the Windows Media format. The latest example of that strategy's success is Microsoft's deal with the world's No. 3 record company, EMI Recorded Music, to sell more than 100 albums, from Frank Sinatra to Pink Floyd, online using Windows Media technology. Microsoft also plans to build the player into Windows Millennium, the next version of its computer operating system targeted at home users that is due out in September. On Monday, Microsoft also released Windows Media Technologies 7, an updated platform of tools for encoding audio or video for Internet use, placing it on the server computers that underpin the Web, and handling usage permission to help prevent copyright violations. ``All these pieces are coming together,'' Unangst said. But last week, Real scored a major victory when it signed a deal with America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) for the Internet services giant to use Real's software throughout AOL's networks. Microsoft said that since Real's software supports Windows Media, the deal was good for it, too. ``Both companies involved are licensees of Windows Media. In terms of reach, it's fantastic, it means the Windows Media technology will be supported more broadly,'' Unangst said.