RealNetworks Licenses Intel Software to Boost RealSystem

In a bid to improve the delivery of video via the
World Wide Web, Intel Corp. and RealNetworks Inc. announced today that
RealNetworks will license and incorporate Intel’s Streaming Web Video
technology into the RealNetworks RealSystem G2.


Rob Glaser, RealNetworks’ chairman and CEO, and Pat Gelsinger, Intel vice
president and general manager of the Business Platform Group, formally
announced the licensing deal this afternoon in a press conference at the
Intel Developer Forum.


In addition, Intel said it will work with RealNetworks to co-promote and co-market the new technology to Web media authors.


Glaser declined to reveal the financial terms of the alliance during the press conference, adding that the companies were not prepared to comment on the structure of the agreement.


What RealNetworks did say, however, is that the integration of Intel’s Streaming Web Video technology into RealSystem G2 enables video encoding to be completed four times faster than previous streaming media delivery systems, processing 30 frames per second.


The company added that earlier encoding processes required as many as three or four computers to encode live video, whereas the new technology used with RealSystem G2 SureStream creates a single file that scales from 5 Kbps to 1 Mbps in real-time on a 400 Mhz Pentium II processor-based system.


Glaser said RealNetworks currently has over one million players downloaded
from the company site each week, and he expects that number to surge with the
addition of the Intel technology. The next beta release is slated for release within 30 days while shipping versions of RealSystem 5.0 and the beta 1 release of RealSystem G2 are available at the site.


When asked to comment on dealings with rival Microsoft, both Glaser and
Gelsinger were tight lipped, saying that while each company will continue to work with Microsoft, they were not willing to discuss specifics.


Wall Street reacted positively to today’s news; shares of RealNetworks jumped more than 30% at one point during the trading day. In late afternoon activity, RealNetworks (NASDAQ:RNWK) was trading at 24 7/16, up 4 13/16.

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