Musicmatch Gets Help From Intel

San Diego-based Musicmatch claimed the non-exclusive deal would mean as many as 20 million new PCs would ship with its Jukebox software, which links to the company's download music service. Intel, however, said the reseller channel only ships "several million" PCs.

Musicmatch software will be included in the resource CD that ships with Intel desktop motherboards sold to small PC makers, some of which sell specialized machines, such as gaming PCs. Musicmatch currently ships in PCs from Dell, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard. The latter, however, recently announced its switching to Apple Computer's iTunes.

Intel had been shipping RealPlayer on the disks, but a spokeswoman declined to give a reason for the change, saying, "I wouldn't rule out using RealNetworks in the future."

The agreement is expected to have little impact on RealNetworks, which is battling for position in the much larger and more lucrative consumer electronics market, Vamsi Sistla, analyst for ABI Research, said. In that arena, RealNetworks is facing its No. 1 rival Microsoft Corp., which is looking to get its Windows Media Player in as many devices as possible, besides the PC.

"RealNetworks, so far, has been primarily a PC player, while Microsoft is chugging away in the consumer electronics market at a faster pace," Sistla said.

Indeed, The New York Times reported Thursday that RealNetworks chief executive Rob Glaser has asked Apple to join his Seattle-based company in a common front against Microsoft. Apple sells the industry's most popular digital music player, the iPod, and has the most popular music service, iTunes.

Privately held Musicmatch, on the other hand, is far behind the dominant players in the music software and services business, and has yet to make a serious play in the consumer electronics market, Sistla said.

"They're going to have to offer something more (than Microsoft and RealNetworks), and I don't think they are," Sistla said.

*This story courtesy of Techweb.com.