RealNetworks, Inc. (RNWK)

Stock is trading at its Tangible Book value current. Balance sheet looks solid with tons of cash. While It has losing money (I don't remember the last time this company reported a possible EPS), it should be able to take on several more quarters of losses before it has to shut the door.

My biggest concern for Real Network is... it is losing its market share (which was small to begin with) to its competitors, and goes with it is the steady revenue stream. While it is spending 20% of its revenue on R&D, it has not come out with a product that Wow comsumers for a very long time. It needs to have a breakthrough in the media technology, or something that take the competitors by surprise - like Apple did with iPhone.

It needs to improve the bottomline before the stock could perform well again. This is going to be an uphill battle for the management turn things around. Network media market is saturated and maturing, so growth potential becomes limited. Shareholders are going to have to suffer for a long time.

i like rhapsody and itunes sucks. Acer needs them.

Looks like its trading near its lows. I woudln't by it with any real money, but here it should outperform.

10/29/08, 5:00 PM. Lousy company trading for cash value. Potential buyout candidate. Against S&P best rating is up-thumb.

Member of the "Undervalued Club" bandwagon.

PE high but if that were tech critieria nobody would own MSFT, GOOG, this is insider buying pick.

this is a gamble. if they fix the product (yes, Rhapsody) and make it work nicely (fix the goddamn bugs!) and everywhere (iphone? everywhere-over-the-air-device?) they'll be the domination in music-reniting business. so far nobody has a better offering.

if they don't do all those things, well, they'll be a big boat in a big fleet.

I like the below $10 price and its potential for a good return.

Every computer on Earth comes with the Real Player to watch stream casts, podcasts, high lights you tube etc etc. I like the product and think the best is yet to come.

isn't doing much now but will shine in the second half

within 3 months

The price would go up!

RNWK will outperform the market this year as they are horribly undervalued and perception of the company is incorrect after big investments in online gaming and Rhapsody Music service.

Undervalued online content distributor which is growin its revenue source from online casual games around the entire world, including Europe and South America. Casual games is the fastest growing segment of the videogames business and RNWK is well positioned to take advantage of higher profit-margins in this sector and/or be acquired by a larger media company interested in entering the space.

Big deals and GOOGLES need to get into games and music - look for a good speculation play.

Then look into a solid company with their hands in a lot of growing revenue streams.

I think that this company is a loser in the long term because they are terrible at everything they do. Well, maybe that's harsh, but they are certainly not a leader in anything that they do.

Their streaming media player has been outclassed by a website based on flash (Youtube). I don't see realmedia files anywhere anymore.

Their music store is not the cheapest, most portable, or the one offering the biggest selection. A face among the crowd with no edge except it's association with MTV. (Is that really so great? Does it beat association with iPods? An establised online retailer, or a music label?)

Their foray into Open Source was met with strong resistance from the targeted community.

If they keep up like this, I don't think that they will outperform the market.

Combined revenue from all of their business lines may keep them afloat, (diversifying faster than they can completely fail at one thing) but without a catalyst there's no possibility they will take off.

With MTV and games on the internet, this could be the next Apple.

Real has, though it's client is a mess, a good technology on the backend: the former helix server is the only one out there, able to in- or decrease the quality of streams on the fly, depending on the users bandwith. By WebTV becoming more and more relevant for mass media, this could be a good shot for either google or microsoft...

Hype on MS antitrust and takeout plan or spinoff of Music business or merger with NAPS.