Say, Windows cultists, what happened? Maybe you've forgetton, but I sure remember how you all declared that the music rental services would kill the iTMS dead almost over-night. They'd dwindle Apple's share of the US music market down to almost nothing, you said.

I also remember how you all said people were getting tired of the iTMS, and walking away from it because it was "a closed proprietary system". You said consumers hated the "low-quality AAC format".

But now here we are, and it turns out the iTMS is even MORE successful than ever. So why didn't your claims some true, even though you insisted it was 100% certain that they would?

Could it be because your claims were frothing, delusional fantasies with no basis in reality whatsoever? Could it be that they were contradicted by the facts at every turn? Could it be because you all live in a rabid fantasy world where up is down and down is up? I say it's all three of the above. Man. Life's really gotten difficult for the little Kool-Aid drinkers, hasn't it?

Apple posts a record $430 million profit on the day Microsoft agrees to pay $761 million to RealNetworks?

It would be more amusing if Microsoft wasn't making $4 billion per quarter in net income already. That settlement will cut into profit numbers for this quarter, but the charge will probably be paid out of the company's $50 billion cash horde, so it really doesn't impact them at all.

The M$-Real announcement is more significant than just a settlement : they held a press conference to announce it.
What it comes down to is M$ again bought its way into a favorable position in the AV domain. By this huge outpouring of money that they don't know what to do with, they turned a strong opponent into a strong ally that they will later eat from the inside.
Real "owned" the web AV market long before MS even thought of creating Windows Media and for a long time their only competition was QuickTime, which didn't have much of a market even though it was a better technology from the word go, because so many websites had bought a Real license.
Has anybody noticed the timing of this press conference ? On the very day when Apple announces its quarterly results, and the day before Apple's media event. This is surely not a coincidence, it was planned well in advance. And this might explain in part what happened to AAPL stock, as investors are very quick at discounting Apple's successes and panicking over the least bit of perceived risk for the company. The after hours market, though, isn't a very reliable indicator of the reactions of the actual regular hours market. It is a highly speculative fringe market, where people essentially try to make a killing by anticipating the direction the regular market will move … This is where I have usually BOUGHT AAPL shares at the best price, actually.
What worries me about the MS_Real announcement is the fact that their cooperation efforts will not be limited to the music market, where Apple is now fairly firmly entrenched and doesn't have much to fear from these 2 leviathans.
I hope tomorrow's announcement is about the Apple Movie Store, where agreements with studios are announced, because it looks like MS and Real might be attempting to pull the carpet from under Apple's feet in this area, and trying to set MS's DRM as a standard. If Apple beat them to the starting gate, as they did with the music market, they just might establish the same head start; if they don't, they might find that they have a formidable adversary in front of them.
Hopefully, studio heads won't be stupid to the point of handing MS the keys to their IP ! The RIAA may resent Steve Jobs for holding to his guns when it comes to pricing tunes, but if they had been dealing with Ballmer, they might have had to settle for 60% or less of the download price instead of the 80 something they're getting from the iTMS … and I hope movie studios are aware of this—I actually think I've read something about this somewhere in the past few weeks, and if they are on their guard, all the better for Apple.

I missed the conference call (had to go get X-rayed), does anyone know if there's a place where I can get a transcript or download the sound file ?