Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
RealNetworks’ CEO gets $2.9M bonus for the settlement with Microsoft: remember that the deal got Real a nice $460M in hand and collaboration with MS on several departments.
Interview: Rob Glaser, RealNetworks founder and CEO: Rhapsody, music subscriptions services in general, DRM and Apple’s dominance are all discussed here. Good stuff. (Though I have to object to the “borrowing their friends’ CD’s and ripping them and moving them to the device, which is not a legal thing to do” quote.)
Interesting side-fact: Rhapsody subscribers [...]
RealNetwork’s RealMusic service launches in the UK: subscriptions cost £8.50/month, single track downloads £0.99 and full albums £7.99. Radio, music videos and ringtones are also part of the service’s offering, which is PC/Mac compatible.
Interesting tidbit: according to the article, we should expect to see more European branches of RealMusic surface during the coming year.
Rhapsody announced today that it won’t require its users to use special software to access the service, since they’re launching a Web-based interface. Any PC/Mac/Linux user can point his browser to ‘rhapsody.com’ and, according to Red Herring, stream up to 25 songs per session, for free (song downloads are not available for now).
What’s the business [...]
Finally! Some good financial results (courtesy of RealNetworks): with a net income of $11.2M and their music services growing in revenue and subscribers for 9 consecutive quarters, it seems like they’re on the right path. Side-fact: Rhapsody has got 1.3M subscribers.
Review: Cambridge Audio Azur 340A integrated amplifier (goes for a mere—in audiophile’s terms—$250, yet earns glowing review; “When you buy forty watts, you should know what you’re not getting. The thing is, the forty watts that the 340A does deliver are of excellent, in fact audiophile quality, and more than enough for most real-world listening.”; [...]