RealNetworks (News - Alert), the company behind the incredibly long running computer audio player, the RealPlayer, has announced it has appointed Rob Glaser as its permanent CEO. Glaser founded the company in 1994 and has spent the last two years as the interim CEO. On the same day that the company announced the move in the front office, it also announced that its RealPlayer Cloud solution has racked 5 million registered users. That number is up by more than 2 million from just a few months ago. It appears in part that the increased popularity of their new solution is being laid at the feet of Glaser.
"Rob is the best person to complete Real's turnaround and to lead the company into the future," said Dominique Trempont, lead independent director of the RealNetworks Board, in a statement announcing the move. "The Board greatly respects his leadership, vision, and the excellence of the team Rob has assembled."
Glaser responded with a statement of his own in which he touted the company’s success in launching solutions like the RealPlayer Cloud, LISTEN and the soon to hit the market Slingo Adventure. Glaser also pointed out the company had made real progress in revitalizing another solution that has been around for quite a while. Forgotten but not gone, streaming music service Rhapsody is starting to make a bit of a comeback.
Rhapsody announced late last week that it had just cross the 2 million subscribers mark. That number was an increase of about 300,000 registered users in a few months time. The service recently unveiled Rhapsody unRadio, a radio based service that is working in conjunction with T-Mobile (News - Alert). While the original RealPlayer has since lost some steady ground to other music players, its cloud functionality seems to have been enough to get it back on the Internet map.
Glaser first founded RealNetworks 20 years ago and served as the CEO until 2010. In 2012 he came back as the interim CEO and is now back in the fulltime position.
Edited by Adam Brandt
View all articles