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Technology Stocks : RealNetworks (NASDAQ:RNWK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: craig crawford who wrote (463)	4/2/1998 4:07:00 PM
From: Doug West	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5843

YHOO is 104 and MSFT is only 91. You don't really think that Yahoo is worth more than MSFT do you? No, sure don't, but I wouldn't pay 104 for YHOO either. Then again, I wasn't sure I wanted it at 20 either. Obviously, at this point, that was a bargain.

To: craig crawford who wrote (463)	4/2/1998 5:25:00 PM
From: Buzz Lightyear	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5843

Open up your eyes bloke, courtesy of MF's STINKY. Computers Telstra Lines Up To Get Real Grant Butler 04/02/98 Australian Financial Review Page 34 RealNetworks has signed with Telstra to develop an Australian version of its "RealNetwork", an enhanced system for "multicasting" sound and video to internet users. RealNetworks ' international executive producer, Mr John Shay, made the announcement this week during a visit to Australia. The two companies intend to have the system operating by mid-year and to focus on broadcasting sports, concerts and other "popular" material. However, it had yet to finalise any deals with content providers, Mr Shay said. The Australian RealNetwork will be a replica of the network unveiled by RealNetworks and the telecommunications carrier MCI in the United States last August. That network is capable of distributing relatively high quality audio and video content to 50,000 US internet users simultaneously. According to Mr Shay, the most popular program on the US system was cricket. "I know it's weird," he conceded. "But we don't get cricket on TV in the States." Sound and video can be sent to users more quickly across the RealNetwork system because the signal is spread across multiple servers located as close as possible to end users. This is achieved by distributing the original data feed to 10 "splitters" on the MCI network. When a user requests a music video clip, for instance, it is delivered to them in real time from the closest server rather than by the original source. RealNetworks calls this "distributed multicasting". The Australian network will be smaller than its US parent. Whereas the MCI system is distributed across 10 servers, Telstra intends installing only four around Australia. The idea of an Australian RealNetwork was mooted last August by Mr Rob Glaser, the company's chairman and CEO. At the time, Mr Glaser told The Australian Financial Review that he expected to invest "hundreds of thousands" of dollars to develop a RealNetwork in Australia, compared to several million for the US network. However, according to Mr Shay, the Australian system is to be integrated with not only the US network but also one in Japan. RealNetworks has signed up with NTT, KDD and technology firm Trans Cosmos to create J-Stream (www.stream.co.jp) to deliver streaming media to Japanese internet users, Mr Shay said. Mr Shay added that he believed the Australian market was well prepared for a RealNetwork. He claimed his company held a 96 per cent share of the streaming media market. If correct, that leave only 4 per cent market share for Netshow, VDO, Vivo, Xing and Vxtreme. Notably, RealNetworks recently acquired Vivo. A total of 50 million Real players are now in circulation among internet users, having been downloaded or obtained as part of the latest version of Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer 4.0, according to RealNetworks . Of the 600,000 RealAudio and RealVideo players downloaded free from RealNetworks ' web site each week, some 30,000 were being taken from a mirror site at Connect.com in Australia, Mr Shay said. In addition, the number of internet sites, or URLs, housing RealMedia content in Australia had also grown from 200 in January 1997 to about 4,800 in January this year, he said. RealNetworks said the worldwide figure was now about 245,000. KEY POINTS * Telstra has signed with RealNetworks to develop an Australian version of its 'RealNetwork'. * The network will be able to distribute relatively high quality audio and video over the inetrnet. * Its 'distributed multicasting' spread signals across multiple servers located closer to users. Going Global, STINKY;>)