If the pundits are right and MP3 leads to a revolution in the music-recording industry, will the technology's real-time cousin spell curtains for RealNetworks and Microsoft?
At first blush it might seem that way, given the runaway success of Nullsoft's Shoutcast -- the high-quality streaming MP3 server that more or less allows anyone with a computer and a modem to launch his own digital radio station.
But Nullsoft co-founder Tom Pepper said his company isn't about to trouble the Seattle-area heavyweights anytime soon.
"We're taking more of a micro-casting approach," Pepper said. "Our server architecture is built to handle a distributed environment and is not really directed at people throwing out 5,000 streams.
"We don't have the business infrastructure to handle the demand on something like that. We're focusing on shaping what's happening on the smaller side."
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This boutique strategy has created a mighty ground swell of support for Pepper's small company, located in Sedona, Arizona. Nullsoft created Winamp, the de facto standard MP3 player. Though not quite a household word yet, MP3, or Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer 3, is prized among audiophiles and pirates, who love the format's high sound quality and small download time.
Meanwhile, RealNetworks (RNWK) has invested years of development and millions of dollars on a streaming technology that performs in what senior vice president Phil Barrett called the "dirty environment that is the Internet."
But some say the same proprietary streaming technologies that are the foundation of the Microsoft NetShow and RealNetworks players may be their undoing.
Nullsoft's popularity can be attributed in part to MP3's near-CD quality sound, but also to the fact that the software is built atop an open, standardized compression technology.
