“‘It’s kind of a Soviet model,’ said Glaser, referring to Apple’s closed environment in a remark that drew laugher from the audience at the annual National Association of Broadcasters conference here. ‘Taking secure music off the PC is a morass of incompatibility. This is not going to fly in the mainstream market.’ […]
The company had approached Apple CEO Steve Jobs with a proposal to create a technical alliance that would allow customers of RealNetworks’ music service to play songs on the iPod, to no avail. That could now force RealNetworks into a deeper relationship with archenemy Microsoft, which has won support for its technology on dozens of players and plans a major upgrade later this summer.”