RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) is profitable again! The online media company that provides music and other entertainment cut its way into the black, getting rid of the costs that were getting in the way. It wasn't much of a profit, only $1.5 million for the third quarter, not even a full cent per share, but it's a hell of a lot better than the $4.5 million loss it sustained in the third quarter of 2008.

Revenue fell 8% last quarter to $140.3 million, just shy of the analyst average of $140.9 million. This trend is likely to continue through the fourth quarter. Music, technology product and game revenues were down. The profit was instead eked out of the supply chain and headcount.

In an interesting move, RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) has decided that it wants to kick off another potential controversy with Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone and its applications (apps).

RealNetworks has developed an app for the iPhone that will bring the company's Rhapsody music service (a pay-to-listen service) to the iPhone and the iPod touch. The question is, will Apple allow the company to do this? RealNetworks has stated that it will submit its application for Apple's approval this week.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will begin selling newer versions of its Zune digital media player as of today at national retailers like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). The world's largest software company will, again, try to compete head-to-head with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iPods, current the planet's most popular line of digital media players.

In addition to replacing the original Zune player with a newer, sleeker unit, Microsoft's releasing the slimmer Zune player in 4GB and 8GB capacities to compete more directly with Apple's most popular iPod product, the iPod nano. After five years, is the world tiring of the iPod and seeking another, equally capable device with more features and an online media store to boot? Many would answer "yes" to that question, and that's the market Microsoft wants to recruit to this new line of Zune devices.

When Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) engaged with telecom dinosaur AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) to partner with it in launching one of its most ambitious products ever -- the iPhone -- many saw it as a gambit to partner with the leading wireless operator instead of partnering with a more advanced and "hip" wireless carrier. Apple of course knew that to get the iPhone into as many hands as possible, it would have to go with the largest. There's probably other reasons as well. But the partnership between these two companies has been labeled as odd at best by many, including me.

Apple knows marketing, knows its customers and has the flash to sell gadgets and computers unlike any other company. AT&T is an aging brand trying to re-invent itself for the younger, everywhere-connected generation who won't even know what a landline telephone is in a decade. But with 60+ million wireless subscribers, no company could walk away from that statistic when launching one smash wireless handset. When Apple unveiled the iPod Touch a few weeks ago (which is basically an iPhone without the phone), AT&T execs must have cringed.

As I was following Apple. Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) "The beat goes on" event yesterday, I caught myself wondering this: can Apple roll out incremental features to its iPod line and get the market excited once again? I'm not sure that happened, as Apple shares remained stagnant during the event and then closed down almost nine points. This on a day when the company refreshed its entire iPod lineup with new "models." Ehh.

Did Apple just suffer along with many other tech stocks in yesterday's downtick, or was it something more? Apple CEO Steve Jobs has a wonderful way of making the world think each 'new' Apple product is somehow a first or one-of-a-kind, but most aren't any longer when it comes to the iPod line (save the iPhone, which is easily a revolutionary product).

Basically, Jobs trotted out the same products -- from the iPod Classic to the iPod Nano to the iPod Touch -- with incremental feature upgrades and more marketing glitz than a glazed donut. The market seemed unimpressed, all things considered. But, there's more.