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To: BillyG who wrote (29589)	2/17/1998 3:01:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

QuickTime doesn't do MPEG-2, yet............................................ ijumpstart.com QuickTime Adoption Makes Apple A Significant Force in MPEG-4: Licensing Deals Could Push Format Beyond the PC <Picture><Picture><Picture> The International Standards Organization's decision to use QuickTime as the foundation for the MPEG-4 specification gives Apple Computer Inc. [AAPL] the power to lead digital media content creation efforts beyond the PC into the next century. While Apple's viability as a hardware company remains in doubt, the manufacturer has re-established itself as a technology leader and may be able to leverage its tools expertise into a far-reaching revenue stream. If MPEG-4 does becomes the standard for streaming media that includes audio, video, 3-D objects and can be transmitted at multiple bit rates, Apple may be in a position to license QuickTime to set-top box manufacturers and other companies looking to distribute enhanced programming to hardware other than the PC. Last week IBM Corp. [IBM], Oracle Corp. [ORCL], Silicon Graphics Inc. [SGI] and Sun Microsystems Inc. [SUNW]-four of the top tools and multimedia technology companies-endorsed QuickTime as the MPEG-4 foundation and will include the file format in their upcoming products. Sun plans to incorporate QuickTime into its Java media framework and hopes to have a version ready at about the same time the MPEG-4 spec is released, said Jon Kannegaard, vice president of software products at Sun's JavaSoft division. Apple executives downplayed the financial implications of the decision and said their goal is widespread QuickTime adoption rather than profit. "We don't view this is as fundamental foundation for a large money-making venture," said Tim Schaaff, senior director of engineering, Apple's interactive media group. Given the precarious nature of the authoring-tool business, executives know they'll need more than QuickTime adoption to make Apple profitable. "The primary goal for what we do still needs to be trying to sell more Macs because that what keeps the lights on here," said Steve Bannerman, senior product manager for QuickTime. "We're not banking on QuickTime to turn the company around." Apple views QuickTime as a tool to promote development of titles that run on the Mac. "If QuickTime we're it's own separate company it would be a very hot IPO," said Rick Dougherty, principal of Envisioneering Group. "Everybody loves QuickTime, they're just worried about Apple's financial resources." And time is not on Apple's side. The company hasn't sustained profitaility over the last two years and won't be able to glean any financial rewards from MPEG-4 until the end of 1999 at the earliest. Companies will submit ideas for MPEG-4 until late this year, and the spec will go through a comment period for another 12 months. ISO expects to have a working specification available in late '99. Microsoft's Input The spec is expected to go through major changes until that time and likely will include pieces from Microsoft Corp. [MSFT], Intel Corp. [INTC] and other industry players at that time. Peter Schirling, chairman of the MPEG-4 Committee and a senior consulting engineer with IBM Corp. [IBM] said the committee will bring all companies with a financial interest in MPEG-4 into the specification discussions. Microsoft downplayed the importance of QuickTime's role in the final spec. "A lot of people are on that committee [ISO]," said David Britton, Microsoft group product manager for platform marketing. "[MPEG-4] is not going to be a QuickTime thing or an ASF [active streaming format] thing." Apple could take a page out of Microsoft's playbook and try to turn QuickTime into the Windows of multimedia, but the company has yet to finalize the new business model for content creation. Historically, Apple has included QuickTime in the Macintosh OS. But executives are reevaluating it as a revenue source. Apple will make a professional QuickTime version available for $30 when the cross-platform version 3.0 ships, which is expected by month's end. Tools provider Media 100 Inc. [MEDA] has proclaimed the cross-platform version the foundation for its transition to Windows NT and if other tools makers do the same, Apple may see additional revenue. "Steve Jobs is talking to executives at the very highest levels to see how we're going to implement this," Bannerman said. Apple also may charge developers a fee to license QuickTime. (Apple, 408/996-1010) What Developers Have to Gain from MPEG-4 It could provide standards for authoring content that were not available for CD-ROM;It will allow developers to encode content in multiple bit rates in one file format. Authors will be able to repurpose content across multiple networks;MPEG-4 enables interactive play back of content. The architecture treats objects in a scene separately, allowing users to manipulate objects;MPEG-4 will include specifications for 3D and VRML-like content in addition to the audio and video specs defined by MPEG-2;MPEG-4 can be used instead of MPEG-2 in some applications and requires much less bandwidth; andDevelopers will be able to leverage existing QuickTime media libraries.