Microsoft relaxes licensing for digital media

SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp has said it would license the technology behind its digital media streaming software at lower prices and across a wider range of platforms. The new licensing plan for Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series, which sends and receives audio and visual content across the Internet, will allow developers to create software that will run on various devices and on non-Windows-based computers, opening up a wider market for Microsoft's streaming standard.

"These are our most flexible licensing terms to date," said Will Poole, Vice President for New Media Platforms. The new licensing programme would allow developers to create software that sends video and audio, for example, to personal computers that run on free Linux software, which can be copied and modified unlike Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Microsoft, which competes with cross-town rival RealNetworks Inc in the digital streaming market, said the flexible licensing and new pricing for Windows Media would help spur demand for a wider range of Microsoft's software products that use the standard.

"The goal is to meet an industry opportunity to make this technology broadly available so that it will be even more ubiquitously used than today," Poole said. Although developers of Linux will be able to license Microsoft's technology, they will be bound by the terms of the licensing contract, which "provides the means to protect our intellectual property", Poole said.

RealNetworks has released the underlying blueprint, or source code, for its digital streaming technology to a community of developers under an initiative called Helix. In conjunction with the announcement of the new licensing terms, Microsoft said it had finalised its Media 9 Series software platform, which offers high-end features such as high-definition television, faster playback and 5.1-channel digital surround sound.

© Reuters