RealNetworks will today make a big digital music announcement with the company's CEO Rob Glaser claiming that "we are changing the rules of the internet again, and digital music will never be the same".
The consensus is that the press event at New York's Radio City Music
Hall will announce that Real is launching a rival to the Napster-To-Go service which will means subscriber to Real's Rhapsody music service will be able to listen to tracks from their whole music library on their portable music devices (previously subscribers could listen to all tracks online, but had to pay a per-track fee to download a track to their MP3 player). That said, given
Glaser's remarks, some wonder if Real will be announcing another venture too.
Either way, Glaser is sure to be on good form having won his one millionth subscriber recently, and with revenues for the first quarter at a record level. Real bosses will also be pleased that Napster have increased their budgeted revenue expectations twice in recent months. While Napster are in theory competitors of Real, both companies are keen to see subscription model download platforms
- as opposed iTunes style pay-per-track services - doing well.