Slashdot Mirror
AOL Time Warner Netscape CNN... and AT&T?
Baldrson noted a bit running on Yahoo right now where the AOL, Time, Warner, Netscape, CNN mega corporation is in talks with AT&T for their cable network. The inevitable and scary consolidation continues ever onward. The US govt will be sold on eBay in a few years, but only Microsoft and the corporation formerly known as Netscape AOL Warner CNN AT&T Time (NAWCAT) will be left to bid. But since Nawcat will already own ebay, there will no doubt be rumors of unfair play.
don't forget the fact that aol is foaming at the mouth for Yahoo! Check it:
i s?STRING=aoltimewarneryahoo.com&STRING=Search
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/who
Forget Microsoft. Fear AOL.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Why'd they stop? 'Cause all the "dark future" stuff they read about kept coming true! Reality TV, Corporate owned gov'ments, cameras in your toliet...Gee, I guess we really do live in interesting times.
It's a Brave New 1984.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Everybody knows that AT&T Broadband is for sale. It only makes sense that another cable company would be the one making the purchase. Comcast made the first offer, Cox is rumored to be interested, of course AOLTW is going to be interested. It makes sense for them. This isn't so much an evil megalo-corp bent on world domination as it is a large company that probably can't hit growth targets without making acquisitions.
And as far as size goes, there are plenty of companies out there that would dwarf AOLTW...some people need to calm down and take a look at the world before freaking out...
Juiced? Or Not?
(Disclaimer - I'm British, these are nominally American companies and this would mostly affect American users. Flame away if you think this is none of my business.)
I have to say, this whole saga sounds so much like AOL etc. _daring_ the government to stop them. They can't quite believe they're getting away with it but hey, if they can buy the world before anyone notices and complains then they might as well give it a try...
Someone _really_ needs some backbone to stand up to this, it's ridiculous. A company like this would have so much power it isn't funny and they need stopping. From a shareholder point of view, a company this large would likely be quite unwieldy and so probably wouldn't be as good value as the individuals currently are collectively.
Except look at the current 'business friendly' Whitehouse. Oh well, better luck in 2004, guys.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
An interesting resource guide to what the major media companies own.
So AOL/TW won't get the entire AT&T cable market, just part of it.
Yes, but in a publicly owned company, percentage share IS ownership. The outright monopoly is naturally 51%, but 40% is pretty much running the show.
Microsoft helped create the computer/software world. You're a fool if you think otherwise. Your close mindedness is typical of the avergage /.er.
I read slashdot cause I like perspective. I use Windows. I use Linux. I know heaps about Windows. I know heaps about Unix. I program under Windows. I program under Unix.
I get angry when I read obviously brainwashed posts. Even if we just talk about the software world, there are companies that are just as devious as Microsoft (only not as big - therefore not as noticable). Ever heard of Sun or Oracle? They're just as much a threat as Microsoft is. In the past, all they've cared about is making big money from big companies - they never cared about the little guys with PCs at home. In the end, Microsoft's and Gate's charitable donations are to important things (health, education, third worlds). I can't remember the last time McNeally or Ellison doing that. The last big thing Ellison bought was prolly a new jet plane.
By talking about Microsoft as if they're some kind of 'evil' entity, you make belittle the real problems.
And BTW, slashdot is supposed to be "news for nerds". Not "news for geeks". Discussions that aren't computer related somehow end up bashing Microsoft. It's childish.
Not true, governments have guns. I doubt seriously any business is going to be able to fight that.
Why would business need guns when it can manipulate governments into using guns for them? It's not like this doesn't happen already (and hasn't been happening for at least decades).
Plus wonderful countries like Brazil and South Africa are starting the horrendous trend of taking property and intellectual rights from corporations.
"Taking them", or taking them back? In any case, that's not exactly "starting the
You've heard of "privatization", right? That's where a corporation takes over a government function, and proves that they're at least as good at running a bureaucracy as a government is, and even better at making sure as few benefits as possible get to the people who pay for them.
Governments? Corporations? Two sides of same intentionally-devalued coin. A pox on both their houses.
Seriously though, the fcc is mandating that RR open up the pipes for other ISP's to offer cable modem service. First on the list, Earthlink. 15 seconds (yes, it's in the court order, 15 seconds) after Earthlink gets their 1st cable modem subscriber, AOL is allowed to start offering their service via cable modem.
Pain in the ass for us because we've had to do a whole lot of work on the back-end systems and provisioning stuff so that they can be provisioned according to which ISP they're subscribing.
This stuff with AT&T is a little confusing because after AT&T bought MediaOne, they were ordered to divest of all their shares of RR, which they did. AT&T in the Boston area is still using the RR brand itself, but they actually aren't an RR affiliate any longer. They'll be discontinuing their use of the RR brand sometime soon, I'm told.
I do know that AT&T was really impressed with the way RR did business. Their @home offering is just ridiculous compared to RR. They thought they could just have this big cable modem operation by bringing in a bunch of 3rd party vendors to build the shit, drop it in place and it would just run... NOT. When they saw how RR does things, I think they realized how aweful their operation was. I even heard that @home was giving customers static ip addresses in some divisions (don't know if this is still the cast)... While that may sound attractive to end users who want to run servers, what they don't realize is that it pretty much prevents growth. When utilization in a particular area grows, you need to be able to split the area up, which requires an ip renumber. If you can't renumber because everyone has a static, pretty soon the area is going to get horribly oversold resulting in super-slow access.
So, as far as how it affects RR users, it shouldn't, really. I suspect RR is just going to be another service offering, so it will be one of your choices of ISP's, pretty much. The worst case basis is that RR simply becomes a delivery vehicle for aol... *%!$ that noise...
"I can be self-referential if I want to," said Tom, swiftly.