INFAMOUS SOFTWARE COMPANY RealNetworks sells music of all sorts through its RealPlayer Music Store. RealNetworks’ creation has never really bothered Apple’s mp3-selling monster iTunes – which has a 70% share of the music-download market – but that may be set to change.
RealNetworks is dropping the price of e-songs to 49 cents, and just $4.99 an album in an effort to compete with iTunes. iTunes is currently selling its music for 99 cents a song, and $9.99 for an album. By selling songs for 49 cents, RealNetworks will be losing 40 cents on every song it sells, which will in turn subtract about a penny from every share, or $1.8 million altogether.
However, it’s speculated that the sale is a “surefire money-loser” for RealNetworks, because it’ll be charging the consumers a whole lot less than it pays recording companies for music. It’s pretty clear that RealNetworks is currently aiming for coverage, not cash.
RealNetworks is particularly excited about some new technology it has released. Dubbed Harmony, it allows users to convert songs bought at the RealPlayer Music Store into a format that’ll work with the iPod – songs sold in the RealNetworks store are currently coded in the AAC format.
Apple doesn’t like this a lot.
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