- from yet another article about the RealNetworks 'antitrust' lawsuit against Microsoft
Do you think it might help if they shipped a version of RealPlayer that didn't completely suck? Having worked with Real for years at Netscape, I can confidently say that they were the second biggest group of ass clowns I've worked with professionally in my career so far. Arrogant and condescending, they'd forever be telling us all about how we couldn't afford to ship without their plug-in - and when it didn't work, crashed our browser, or just plain delivered horribly jerky stuttery video on even our fanciest hardware, they'd simply shrug and say well, we're the market leaders in this space, what are you going to do about it? Find somebody else?
Given that Real hasn't made any money since 1999, and that their market share is slipping every quarter, it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, end users and content providers may have decided that there are better alternatives to Real.