We have three RealNetwork related stories for you this week, as they have obviously been RealBusy. First up is for all the Mac owners who have been reluctantly buying NT machines to do their encoding due to poor support. Well, the good news is that they now can get the complete RealProducer SDK direct from the developer site - now you can custom stream your brother’s 5th birthday party video to the world ... if you can get it to work.

RealProducer G2 and RealProducer G2 Plus are tools that provide multimedia producers with the ability to take advantage of all of RealSystem G2’s capabilities including RealAudio G2, RealVideo G2 and SureStream. The RealProducer SDK allows software developers to incorporate production of RealSystem G2’s formats into their applications. It includes everything a developer needs to include streaming media authoring in their existing or new applications.

Also, RealNetworks has agreed to acquire MP3 software developer Xing Technology in a US$75 million stock deal. Xing were one of the original streaming companies that suffered from RealNetwork’s success and have since focused on MP3 technology, as Rob Glaser, RealNetworks’ chief executive very helpfully points out: “Xing has world-class MP3 technology that’s been used to encode the vast majority of consumer MP3 content. There’s a huge, legal market for downloadable songs in the MP3 format.”

It’s good news for content creators as the various formats converge, but you have to wonder when they are going to start charge mucho moolah for these toys, or the legal eagles start to get their hands on it.

Which leads us rather nicely on to the news on Monday, that RealNetworks said it would team with IBM to produce a secure way to deliver online music. Real said that it will provide its player as a plug in for IBM’s technology pitch to SDMI. Glaser also declined to say how Xing technology might affect the company’s deal with IBM. We wait with baited breath.

http://www.real.com/