Real suing Microsoft

The digital media war is getting ugly. Real is suing Microsoft, accusing the software giant of having a monopoly over the digital media business because of the way Windows Media Player is bundled with Windows. Damages could exceed $1 billion, according to Real. Microsoft's Windows Media 9 has been beating the pants off some of the competition (ie. Real) lately. Real seems to have abandoned the player war when it went to its open source Helix Community model, but must still feel threatened by the dominance of Microsoft's technology. Sure, Windows Media player is shipped with Windows, but I know it's not that easy. Some of the video I create here with Windows Media Encoder 9 does not run properly on the new Windows 2000 laptops we just got. Why? They contain an older version of Windows Media player. The user still has to go out and download a new player. If Real or QuickTime or whomever came up with a better alternative, wouldn't it be just as easy to download that instead of the latest Microsoft update? I use whatever gives my viewers the best possible quality at the lowest bandwidth, and right now, that's Microsoft. The one point I do agree with Real on is that the PC makers should be able to bundle what every players they choose with their Windows PC shipments. It would be nice if I had the latest versions of all the major player clients installed when I got a new machine.