Analysts: Media Player already ingrained

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Microsoft Corp. has strategically nurtured its Windows Media Player, making it by far the world’s most dominant program for playing digital music and video on computers.

Rival RealNetworks Inc.’s product ranks a very distant second.

It’s not just that Media Player has long been bundled with the Windows operating system, giving consumers an easy way to handle multimedia files without the need to download others.

There’s another big reason:

Many companies in the fast-growing market of digital media — from online music providers to the makers of portable audio players — have already chosen Microsoft as a primary multimedia format.

One example of the many partnerships Microsoft has successfully pursued: users of Napster’s online music service must have recent versions of the Windows Media Player in order to play downloaded songs, create a song library or transfer any tunes to a portable player.

The Redmond, Wash. titan has also worked hard to win the backing of Hollywood for distributing digital movies and other entertainment using Microsoft’s copy-protection technologies. Such partnerships later ensure that Windows software will be needed for playback.

And in the same symbiotic ecosystem, many consumer electronics companies are thus including components that will support Microsoft’s multimedia technologies.

That’s why analysts think the EU’s ruling — ordered implemented immediately by a European court on Wednesday — that Microsoft be forced to offer a Windows version in Europe without the Media Player will do little to tame the software giant.

“Microsoft is basically establishing itself as the most popular technology, and I don’t expect this decision to change that much,” said Paul DeGroot, an analyst with independent researchers Directions on Microsoft.

Microsoft’s multimedia technology is now simply too ingrained in the industry.

The scenario is not unlike the Web browser monopoly issue with which U.S. authorities grappled.

By the time Microsoft settled the antitrust case with the Justice Department in 2002 — including giving customers the ability to hide Microsoft programs like its Web browser and only see competing products — Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was already the predominant browser.

Not just European consumers, but also PC makers will hardly have a reason to choose the pared version of Windows over the standard one, said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst.

“Without a financial incentive, why would they want to leave it off?” he said.

What’s more, manufacturers are catering to consumers who, in part, have been trained by Microsoft’s one-stop shop strategy.

Officials at Dell Inc., the world’s largest PC maker, would not discuss which Windows version they would put on their computers if offered a choice.

“We’re not going to speculate on what effect, if any, this will have on Dell at this point in time,” Venancio Figueroa, a Dell spokesman, said of the EU ruling. Hewlett-Packard Co., the world’s No. 2 PC maker, declined to comment.