Microsoft's 'Corona' set to be rolled out
InfoWorld | at | by Mike
Microsoft is preparing to lob its latest weapon in the digital media war, announcing Monday the beta release timing of the next version of its Windows media platform, dubbed Corona. After months of speculation, the details of Corona, including the product's official name, launch date and additional consumer device manufacturer support, will finally be unveiled, company sources said, providing a further glimpse into the software giant's digital media strategy. Corona is the company's software engine for compressing and decoding video, and is the core of the next version of Media Player.
Microsoft faces competition from MPEG-4, Apple's QuickTime and RealPlayer, according to Gartenberg. Still, Microsoft's strength in the OS market has allowed it to do well with Windows Media. The Windows Media Player has recently closed in on RealPlayer, boasting 15 million users in the U.S., against Real's 17 million U.S. users, according to April 2002 data from researcher Nielsen/NetRatings. It remains to be seen whether the software leader will be able to wrangle more of the digital media market with its updated platform.