I think the market right now perceives them as purely a streaming-media company, but streaming is just one technology to get video and audio to consumers. If you look at the moves they've made, they're pretty well diversified into other technologies related to rich media, and I think the market's missing part of the picture. There are plenty of technologies around that can move more bandwidth-intensive media applications over the Internet, but no single company that has had as much success or displayed the kind of vision that RealNetworks has. I give them a good chance to build a variety of different products to take advantage of this unique expertise. Bill Lennan, you're more bearish on the stock.
Revenues are flat, and no one knows when they'll start heading upwards again.
The outlook for the rest of this year is extremely unclear. Software sales have slowed across the board, and RealNetworks has products that are particularly vulnerable to this slowdown. We feel these capabilities will be more and more in demand as the Internet matures, but as of now, it's not absolutely necessary to have streaming video or audio on your Web site. That is a huge issue for this company and this stock. Nor is RealNetworks in total control of when this happens, because it depends upon the broadband rollouts we've been hearing so much about but seeing so little of.