As Microsoft and RealNetworks continue to trade barbs following their spat that flared up during a Senate hearing last week, an analyst suggests that an innocent technical problem was to blame.
"The problem was a minor technical misunderstanding and it was turned into a major political issue for no reason," concludes Web broadcaster Thomas Edwards. "And it didn't do anybody any good."
Meanwhile, the remarkably public squabble may lead the industry to focus on a bigger software-control issue: Do media-player companies need to follow a standard code of conduct while their video and audio software vies to field streaming media on the Net?
Edwards, president of The Sync, a company that uses streaming media to broadcast audio and video over the Internet, began looking into the issue last week after hearing about RealNetworks' charge.
RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser (RNWK) accused Microsoft (MSFT) of intentionally taking over the video feeds meant for the company's new RealPlayer G2 software. Glaser raised the issue during his Senate testimony on Microsoft practices, and the issue subsequently gained a lot of publicity and caused RealNetworks stock to plummet.
Microsoft countered that a bug in RealNetworks' software was to blame.
Behind the feud is confusion over a simple Netscape (NSCP) software issue that both companies could have handled better, said Edwards. As Microsoft first pointed out in its original response to RealNetworks, there are two places to register software that works alongside the Netscape browser. These registries, in turn, tell the Navigator browser what software to launch when it encounters sound and video on the Web.
"This has to do with the fact that there are two different registries," Edwards said. "One is the root registry and the other is the Netscape registry. In the past, you only registered in the Netscape 'hive' [registry], but with Navigator 4.x, you're supposed to register in the root hive."
Still, software developers can use the Netscape registry, and if they do, it takes precedence over the other -- even thought it's outdated. "It's just this little wacky technical glitch caused by a change in the way Netscape wants people to register their helper applications," Edwards said.
But while the companies argue over the appropriate use of each registry, neither dealt properly with the fact that the Netscape registry supersedes the Windows registry.
Microsoft's Media Player software uses the Netscape registry, which has default power over the root registry. But Microsoft failed to address the issue of the other registry, and RealNetworks and Edwards say competing software should check both registries to avoid overriding each other.
Meanwhile, said Edwards, Netscape should deal with the fact that its recommended registry is subordinate to its older, but still active, one.
"The companies should be more careful about searching out the two registries before they take over a data type," he said. "Failure to do so leads to the issue of whether a decision amounts to 'stealing a data type' from another company's software."
But in any case, Edwards said, a Senate committee is no place to hash out differences.
Responding to Edwards conclusions, the companies held fast to their charges and countercharges.
"One could argue back and forth over which set of rules from Netscape someone should follow, but we don't really believe that's the issue here," said Microsoft's Gary Schare, a product manager. "The issue here is that we did not intentionally go out to break their player as Rob said. It was just this thing about the installer.
"We totally stand behind our story that they introduced this bug into their setup," Schare said. "They could have done it the other way, they always did it the other way in the past -- so therefore it clearly is a bug."
But Edwards blames Microsoft for denying its own responsibility in its technical choices. Matt Hulett, a RealNetworks' product manager, agreed.
"We've never been in a position where we're responsible for fixing bugs that another application causes for us. How are we supposed to know how other applications deal with us?"
Windows Media Player should be revised according to Netscape documentation, Edwards believes. But he still doesn't see the fact that the company used the older -- and authoritative -- directory as an intentional swipe. Having spoken with sources at both companies, he said no one "is trying to take over the world. I think the two companies had a slightly different way of doing things."
The whole affair may lead to focusing on what RealNetworks still sees as a bigger issue as software vies for eyeballs and mouses on the Web. Today, individual vendors can determine whether their software becomes the default player for a wide variety of sound, video, animation, and other "media types."
Microsoft is not the only company that made what Schare called a "policy decision" to take over handling of all compatible media types; there are a variety of audio and video formats for information stored on the Net. Other companies design their players to do the same thing. RealNetworks points out that its policy is not to do so without asking the user first.
Originally joining RealNetworks' anti-Microsoft charge last week, Xing Technologies pulled itself out of the fray and noted that both its player and Microsoft's player take over media types when installed.
"It is important that helper program writers try not to steal other people's MIME types without at least asking the user," Edwards said. "I don't think Microsoft meant to steal these types, but in the end they did."
RealNetworks was quick to agree.
"An application that's bundled with a popular operating system should be an application that follows a more standards-based convention," Hulett said. "You've got to inform consumers. You've got to give them a choice about what application gets played."
Microsoft's Schare said the company would be open to the idea of an industry-supported standard.
