1. Case Name:
• Real Networks Rhapsody
2. Problem Statement:
• How Rhapsody can grow its customer base
• How Rhapsody can differentiate itself in an increasingly crowded market
• How to best deal with the music industry, given how they have been slow to recognize and accept the new realities of music distribution
• Rhapsody's long term prospects
• Where the concepts of The Long Tail are relevant to the above questions and to Rhapsody's overall strategy
3. Background:
a) The Company:
(1) History:
• The company was founded in 1994 as RealNetworks by Glaser.
• In 1995, RealAudio 1.0 revolutionized the Internet by allowing users to “stream” real-time audio when they clicked on a Web page link.
• RealNetworks’ dominant position was challenged in 1998 when Microsoft launched the Windows Media Player (WMP)—which was tightly integrated into new versions of Microsoft’s OS.
• By late 1998, became the dominant standard for streaming audio and video with more than 400,000 websites using its server technology and more than 42 million players downloaded.
• In 2000, almost 70% of the revenues were generated by providing server and other software services to online content providers.
• Remaining revenue derived by selling advertisements on its websites and selling the premium version of the popular Real player.
• Completed a music download system infrastructure named MusicNet in 2001, to let users download music on ...