Can Microsoft buy RealNetworks' silence?

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... are a significant part of the US economy

Manufacturing companies have long known that they might be able to make more money licensing out their IP than actually producing a product.
And in IT remember the companies that raised a lot of capital, found nobody wanted their product, and went into the business of holding onto their money.

What makes this situation new is not "companies that produce nothing", it's the fact that some companies are probably worth more dead than alive. I think Sun, in particular, would see its stock rise precipitously if it announced it was going to stop selling anything but IP. In that case, they could even hang onto an R&D section to generate new patents for them. Sun has nothing to sell.

The take-away from this situation is that companies require products that will be bought to survive. Intellectual Property is part of inventory.

Poor Real. I think the reason they lost mindshare is because they had nothing to sell. Impossible to charge much if anything for a player these days, and those giving away software (Microsoft and open source have this much in common.) care deeply about media.
So, since they apparently don't have much IP except their very replaceable codecs, you can expect to see them disappear.
Part of the process of creative destruction, no?!

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 11/15/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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