RealNetworks Ships Gold Release Of RealPlayer 7 Basic And RealPlayer 7 Plus

RealNetworksÆ, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK), the recognized leader in media delivery on the Internet, Wednesday announced the gold release of RealPlayerÆ 7 Basic and RealPlayer 7 Plus for Windows. The Gold release of RealPlayer 7 builds on the success of RealPlayer 7 beta, which has been embraced by more than 10 million unique users in less than 2 months, an adoption rate believed to be the fastest ever for a product distributed over the Internet. The Gold release of RealPlayer 7 Basic and RealPlayer 7 Plus for Windows is immediately available for download from www.real.com or via the AutoUpdate feature in RealPlayer G2 and RealPlayer 7 beta.""We're thrilled to deliver Gold versions of RealPlayer 7 to consumers, providing quick, easy access to great Audio/Video content from hundreds of programming partners,"" said Maria Cantwell, Senior Vice President, Consumer and E-Commerce Division, RealNetworks, Inc. ""With the tremendous improvements in performance and usability, new media caching capabilities, and a new message service, RealPlayer 7 is delivering a rich Internet media experience that consumers are turning to every day.""The release of RealPlayer 7 builds on previous releases of the award-winning RealPlayer, whose popularity continues to grow with more than 95 million unique users, a 100% increase in the number of users in the last year. RealPlayer 7 is built on the technology foundation developed in the previous version of RealPlayer, RealPlayer G2, which was awarded ""Best Software of 1999"" by C|Net, a leading source for computers and technology at www.cnet.com.Pricing And AvailabilityRealPlayer 7 Basic is immediately available for free download from www.real.com. RealPlayer 7 Plus is immediately available for purchase and download for $29.99 from www.real.com. For more information on the new features in RealPlayer 7, visit www.real.com/player/features.About RealNetworksRealNetworks, Inc., based in Seattle, is the recognized leader in streaming media delivery on the Internet. It develops and markets software products and services designed to enable users of personal computers and other consumer electronic devices to send and receive audio, video and other multimedia services using the Web. Consumers can access and experience audio/video programming and download RealNetworks consumer software on the Internet at www.real.com. All RealNetworks systems and corporate information is located on the Internet at www.realnetworks.com.RealNetworks continues to maintain a strong leadership share of the streaming media market. As of January 2000, there are more than 95 million unique users of RealPlayer and more than 85 percent of all streaming media Web pages on the Internet use industry leading RealAudioÆ, RealVideoÆ, RealFlashô, RealTextô or RealPixô, and more than 350,000 hours of live RealAudio and RealVideo programming are available each week (Source: Hotbot).