ZD Virtual Labs, part of the Ziff-Davis publishing empire, is backing Microsoft's claim that the problem with RealNetwork's G2 media player has nothing to do with Windows or any Microsoft product: It's a bug in G2. Last week, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser might have permanently cut his company's ties with Microsoft when he testified at a Senate committee meeting that Microsoft's own Window Media Player "broke" his company's products. On Friday, Microsoft issued a stern denial of the charges, saying that the G2 player itself--which is still in beta--was the problem. This weekend, ZD Virtual Labs corroborated the Microsoft version of the story.
"Microsoft is right," said Larry Seltzer, the technical director of ZD Virtual Labs. "It's completely unjustifiable for RealNetworks to say that Microsoft has changed something that broke the G2 player."
Seltzer also cited Glaser's exaggeration of the problem.
"\[The problem occurs\] only with certain videos that aren't already embedded \[in a Web page\] and only if the G2 beta is not installed over a previous version of RealNetworks' RealPlayer.
