Apple Says QuickTime 6 Has Been Downloaded 25 Million Times In First 100 Days

A pple has announced today that QuickTime 6, the latest version of its cross-platform multimedia software, has been downloaded more than 25 million times in just the first 100 days since its release. QuickTime 6 is based on MPEG-4, an open standard upon which Real Network has based its own most recent streaming technology, and is available for both Windows and the Mac OS. Appleis press release includes a couple of shots at Microsoftis proprietary approach with its own Windows Media Player, a format that is locked and controlled by Microsoft. The press release also includes testimonial from a Britney Spears representative, WILCO, and a software maker. We left those quotes in the press release below:

Apple today announced that more than 25 million copies of QuickTime 6 have been downloaded in less than 100 days, demonstrating strong demand for the open standard MPEG-4 format upon which QuickTime 6 is based. Combined with nearly 200,000 downloads of the free QuickTime Streaming Server and Darwin Streaming Server, Apple is the industry leader in providing end-to-end MPEG-4 streaming solutions.

"QuickTime 6 has taken off like a rocket, with over 25 million downloads in 100 days," said Philip Schiller, Appleis senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Why pay for a proprietary streaming solution when Apple is offering the first widely distributed end-to-end, open-standards-based streaming solution for free?"

"Jive Records used MPEG-4 to deliver a massive number of video streams of Britney Spearsi on-line exclusive, iI Love Rock and Roll,i" said Jeff Dodes, vice president of New Media for Jive Records. "QuickTime 6 has allowed us to deliver incredible quality audio and video from one of our hottest artists to her fans around the world."

"iYankee Hotel, Fox Troti has been WILCOis most successful album to date, blowing away all industry expectations, and we couldnit have done it without QuickTime and MPEG-4 on our site," said Tony Margherita, manager of WILCO. "Weire even doing a live broadcast from the i930 Clubi in Washington, D.C. this week using MPEG-4 because itis the best way to deliver quality content at a wide range of bandwidths."

"Discreet cleaner 6 for Apple Macintosh supports QuickTime 6 and addresses the growing demand for tools that encode to the MPEG-4 standard-continuing Discreetis long tradition of supporting the latest and greatest encoding standards," said Joseph Klingler, Discreetis senior director of Software Development.

Released on July 15, QuickTime 6 with support for MPEG-4 is Appleis industry-leading, standards-based software for developing, producing and delivering high-quality audio and video over IP, wireless and broadband networks. More than 126 million users downloaded the QuickTime Player via the Internet in the last year, while tens of millions more copies were distributed via digital cameras, software titles and enhanced music CDs.

You can find more information and download links for QuickTime at Appleis Web site.