I think RealNetworks is a company that has spent a lot of its time being irrelevant? QuickTime got their first and Microsoft was quick to follow. Then mp3s and p2p came along and made everyone irrelevant for a time. The iPod/iTMS showed that there could be a market for DRM music. RealNetworks found it self locked out like everyone else. Zune is a gift from whatever god Rob Glaser believes in.

Controlling the whole widget is only great if you can get people to buy your hardware. Something I suspect Microsoft will find out the hard way with Zune. If Glaser plays his cards right, RealNetworks can take the 10-20% of the DRM market that the iTMS doesn’t have. That might not be enough to make the boys at Microsoft happy. However given where RealNetworks is today they should be thankful if they get half of it.

Microsoft has handed RealNetworks the best argument they could ever hope for to get Creative, SanDisk, etc. to it’s side of the DRM fence. Where is Glaser’s proposal for a “tactical alliance” with PlayForSure partners. I’m sure he can come up with a good line about subsidising the Zune. Maybe a nice lie about Harmony being the only “open” choice in DRM. A few bloggers will call him out on it, but what does he care it’s do or die. Out side of a few comments he made on an earnings call, Glaser has stayed quiet. Maybe he learnt something from last time.

Microsoft’s move with the Zune should be an all or nothing bet, because RealNetworks should be able to take their hardware partners away. The possibility however of RealNetworks scooping up PlayForSure partners lands so low on the plausibility scale no one is talking about it. Did Microsoft go a head with the Zune, because they were reasonably sure their PlayForSure partners would be waiting for them if it failed? The collective wisdom appears to be that RealNetworks is irrelevant and Glaser isn’t doing much to dispel it.

Unless Apple screws up big time, the Zune in my opinion is the last hope for Glaser & Co. If they can’t get hardware partners now I don’t see how they ever will.