RealNetworks, Matsushita focus on music distribution

Matsushita Electric Industrial, a maker of home-use electric appliances, said it will join U.S. software maker RealNetworks to distribute music over the Internet.

The companies plan to develop music distribution technology that will enable personal computer users to store downloaded music from the Internet on Matsushita SD Memory Cards. SD Memory Cards are postage stamp-sized digital-data storage devices that were jointly developed by Matsushita, Toshiba and SunDisk, a U.S. maker of memory chips.

Matsushita is competing against Sony to market small digital-information storage devices. Sony is promoting its chewing gum-shaped memory card, called the Memory Stick. Matsushita’s SD Memory Cards will carry RealNetworks’ music player software, Real Jukebox.

The card will be available for portable digital music players that Matsushita plans to introduce in the U.S. market this autumn, the company said. In April, Sony said it will sell music over the Internet to expand the online distribution of entertainment services such as music and games software. People who use Sony’s music distribution service will have access to the catalogs of 10 record and entertainment companies, which will be available for download. In May, San Jose, California-based RealNetworks, which makes the most popular Internet audio and video software, released a preview version of its updated software for creating and distributing media files, hoping to widen its lead over Microsoft.