RealNetworks motherboard deal with Intel

Posted by Simon Perry on 18 June 2003 at 4:17 pm | Tagged as: Business

In an effort to try to re-balance the near-blanket distribution of Microsoft’s Media player, RealNetworks and Intel have signed a deal to have it’s player software distributed on the driver CD that comes with some new Intel motherboards. It appears to only be for two motherboards and strangely they only support Pentium III and Celeron processors - strange as video playback results get much better the more powerful the processor.Industry analysts are split on the value of the deal with the detractors wondering if the system builders will actually install the software.Real have done lots of deals like this in the past, where the headline sounds really impressive but when you look at the detail, its value is diminished. One that springs to mind is their announcement that they were to provide their media player to Nokia. Closer examination showed they had signed a deal to provide the player for only one of their handsets.