Good news for Real? Rafat Ali says:
Shares of RealNetworks are up a hefty 33% year-to-date…what gives? The company is benefiting from being in some of the hottest growth areas on the Internet: music, games and video, the story says, and CEO Rob Glaser is confident that his company will keep up the momentum in the face of mounting competition that some analysts find troubling for RealNetworks shares. On gaming side, after several acquisitions, RealNetworks has gone from distributor of games to also being a publisher and developer, and Glaser sees a bright future in ad-supported online games. Glaser said RealNetworks boasts 2.4 million subscribers across all of its products, the majority coming not from gaming but music, despite subscription music services initially being hard sells.