Posted on 08/07/2002 10:37:31 AM PDT by white trash redneck
RealNetworks Inc. will lay off part of its work force this afternoon, according to sources close to the company. The number to be laid off and their positions aren't known.
Martine Charles, RealNetworks' vice president of corporate communications, declined to comment.
Some in the industry speculated that the company's recently announced foray into open-source software is behind today's layoffs. But the economy is probably more to blame, analysts said.
RealNetworks last month announced Helix, an open-source set of software products it said will allow creating digital media files and programs for any format, operating system or device.
In theory, the company's move toward open source could shift some programming burdens away from in-house programmers to enthusiasts and professionals outside the company.
But "even if they realize the benefits some may expect from open source, the company still has huge amounts to do in assembling a platform suitable for both professional media and enterprise use," said Steve VonderHaar, an analyst with Interactive Media Strategies of Arlington, Texas.
He and Alan Davis, an analyst with Seattle's McAdams Wright Ragen, speculated the layoffs have more to do with pressures RealNetworks faces to maximize profits and cut costs in a difficult economy.
In this year's first quarter, RealNetworks reported its first profit according to generally accepted accounting principles since 1999. It posted a narrowed net loss of $1.6 million, or 1 cent per share, for its second quarter ended June 30.
The layoffs are "no big surprise," Davis said. "(Founder and Chief Executive Rob) Glaser said in the conference call after the last earnings release that he's committed to running a profitable company. Obviously, there are some cuts that need to be made" to get there.
But layoffs could jeopardize the company's ability to hold off Microsoft Corp., its constant competitor, VonderHaar said.
"I should think that RealNetworks has such a challenge ahead of it, going toe to toe with Microsoft, that open source or not, they'd want to hang on to every worker they possibly can to help them in that battle," he said.
The Internet media company laid off 140 workers, or about 15 percent of its 950-member work force, in July 2001. That was its first large-scale cut.
In February 2001, it laid off 18 workers, most of them at the company's Elliott Avenue headquarters, saying they were "redundant."
Maria Cantwell, the RealNetworks senior vice president who is running for the U.S. Senate in Washington state, plans to sell 110,000 common shares of the Internet audio delivery company, according to a regulatory filing. The shares have an estimated market value of about $4.8 million, the filing said. Cantwell, the vice president in charge of consumer and e-commerce operations, listed Aug. 17 as the approximate date of sale.
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2000/08/21/daily19.html
Why aren't the DemocRATs jumping on her like they jumped on Bush and Cheney?
Why, indeed? Great catch!
No, actually, it is that damned Start Center parasite, and Real Download's SPYWARE that made a .lot of people remove their junk and stop using ra format.
But we will blame it on "The Economy" as the fat cats sell out their holdings.
Amen. My old realaudio player stopped working a few weeks ago (I suspect Real planted some kind of disabling command to force me to download updated software). When I went to their sitem to grab an update, the only thing I could find to download was the Realone player. As soon as I opened it the first time I started getting popup messages and advertisements like crazy. Two minutes later I removed it permanently.
I uninstalled all their stuff, and do not miss it.
Nobody downloads RA files anymore..the Real binary groups are empty, and most web sites offer the Winmedia alternative to Real, anyway. When they fold, few will mourn.
Resistance is futile.
They will be assimilated.
I'm using Zoomplayer more and more because I don't like the EULA in the new WMP, and have stripped RealPlayer from just about everything close by because of the increasing SpyWare aspect of their offering.
I use it to watch Bloomberg TV mostly.
You can still find RealPlayer for Windows on the Real site but be prepared to spend 15-20 minutes searching through the support section. It is deliberately very difficult to locate.
What did Cantwell know and when did she know it?
As bad as they are, Microsoft and the terms that come with their license agreement for Media Player are worse.
A late postscript to an old thread...
In August of 2000, Cantwell sold 110,000 shares of RealNetworks stock at about $44/share. RealNetworks stock closed out the year at $8.69/share:
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/historical/default.asp?symbol=RNWK&close_date=12/29/2000
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/historical/default.asp?symbol=RNWK&close_date=8/17/2000
(Today it is selling for about $6.76/share.)
Although her very timely dumping of such a large amount of stock might appear to be evidence of insider trading, it might have just been plain luck. She presumably needed the money for her campaign, and many other dot-com stocks were in free fall at that time, too.
-Dave
Why isn't Cantwell with Martha Stewart?
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