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AOL Seeks Cable Pact With MSN
Daemosthenes points to this Washington Post article, which reads in part: "America Online Inc. is negotiating a deal to give its long-standing nemesis Microsoft Corp. access to Time Warner Inc.'s cable-television lines in a push to meet government demands over AOL's pending takeover of the media company, according to sources familiar with the matter. The rapprochement between AOL and MSN, Microsoft's online service, is a startling reversal of form for two fierce competitors offering rival online services and instant-messaging systems." The entangling alliances here are thicker than your average EULA, too -- the story points out some of the other tendrils which tie together several of the big ISPs, including one of mine (Earthlink).
I'm sick and tired of all the people equating AOL with Microsoft, claiming they're both equal on some great scale of evilness, joining into the mindless chorus of people screaming about how AOL needs to be stamped out immediately for the good of humankind.
In case you'd forgotten, Microsoft makes the operating system than more than 90% of the computer users in the world use. In most cases, there are no viable alternatives to using Microsoft's software; if your business requires that you have to work seamlessly with all the other people in your office, then you'd better be running Windows and Word and Excel and PowerPoint, or else purchase compatible software on your own and train yourself to use it. Microsoft has gotten a lot of bad press because they have willingly and knowingly leveraged their power to crush their opposition and force their way into dominance in new markets, beyond the boundaries of fair play.
AOL, on the other hand, offers a service to get people onto the Internet. Sure, they offer a lot of content on their own site, but you never even have to look at it. Sure, they've been buying up a bunch of companies to diversify their offerings, but none of these acquisitions is an 800-pound gorilla. You don't have to use AIM, you can use a freeware ICQ client if you want to, you can use some other mp3 player than WinAMP, you can use some other browser than Netscape's... in fact, if you don't want to use AOL at all, then EarthLink is just as good, or there are hundreds of other ISP's which work just as well. Nobody has to have AOL in their life at all.
And AOL hasn't stomped all over the industry. They haven't been given a consent decree to violate, they haven't been run through court on breaking anti-trust laws. Yes, so maybe they're in a position where they *could* abuse their power... but, to my knowledge, they haven't yet. And this is just what the lengthy approval process for the merger is designed to prevent.
Of course AOL is going to balk at letting other companies have access to its cables; it wants to be able to leverage that. But I think they'll end up having to concede this in order to get approval on the merger.
Just because AOL is a huge company, don't let your anti-capitalist leanings condemn them. When and if they break the law, they will be dealt with according to the law; but until and unless that ever happens, don't go around saying that Steve Case is the spawn of Satan.
Just put some AT&T in the mix and we'll have an ISP that can take you Anywhere you want to go today @Home with the easiest no-wonder-it's-number-one access to the Internet.
Monopoly anyone? Unfair trade practices?
You do realize that a lot of companies know that competition hurts them both, so that's why so many of them create organizations and associations to help prevent 'destructive' competition - or at the very least exclude others. Look at the Big 3 auto makers and the Auto Pact. Look how happy utilities companies were when utility price standardization came in. Sure it didn't mean huge profits, but it meant consistent ones. RIAA? MPAA?
What MS and AOL are doing is starting the beginnings of another such association - they'll probably try and squeeze out smaller ISPs, likely with government help. When governments start demanding content control on the internet such as keeping porn away from kids, these guys will step up and use that as an excuse to squeeze out small companies. They'll use anything as an excuse. Look at the MPAA - if you're an independent film maker, just TRY and get a real rating on your film. Playboy had an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone and they discussed how one of their films kept getting an NC-17 rating and they couldn't get it through... they got no help and no one would tell them which parts were offensive. But when they were making the South Park movie, the rules were bent for some parts of it, and they ALWAYS knew what to remove/edit.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Nemesis? Netscape owner AOL has been using a special version of Internet Explorer software since day one, and still continue to do so. The full Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5 browser is also bundled onto many of the AOL CD's distributed in the last few years. So what is this "nemesis"? AOL and MS have been allies from day one.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.