In contrast, new Windows versions are not currently flying off the shelves, as many consumers stick with their current operating system versions longer than before. Many large corporations have frozen their plans to move to Win2000 on the desktop, despite new desktop management capabilities that are valuable to them, because of the economic slowdown and the need to upgrade or replace most of the PCs on their desktops to run the new operating system. Second, one of XP's main selling points in the consumer marketplace is its advanced media management, but that's of value only when software that uses those features appears on the market. Third, most consumers do not care whether they use RealPlayer or Media Player. Actually, many have both, because both are free Internet downloads and Media Player does not support RAM file format, which RealPlayer does.
Many people acquire the players as an adjunct to multimedia files that they download.
RealPlayer will be popular as long as media providers use RAM file format, and we see no indication that they are moving away from that. Fourth, the bundling of Media Player 8 into Windows XP will not have the impact of IE because the capabilities of Media Player are add-ons, while the ability to browse the Web is a necessity for conducting business and is becoming a necessity for personal lives. There is a significant distinction to be drawn between the underlying technology and the applications. As the underlying technology improves, Microsoft will continue to upgrade other versions of Media Player for other technologies. The real danger for RealPlayer RealPlayer's future is in question for another reason.