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AOL Time Warner Files Anti-Trust Suit against MS
ChazeFroy writes "This article at the Washington Post says that AOL Time Warner has filed a suit against Microsoft seeking damages from anti-competitive practices over the Netscape browser."
Can't say I'm surprised.
Netscape hasn't been a viable browser since the late 90's.
Is it just me or does the world's largest media company filing against the world's largest software company seem just a bit hipocritical?
DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF
Here.
All sorts of rumors flying around about AOL/TW in the past few days.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
should file a suit against Slashdot seeking damages from anti-competitive practices over the unlimited editor moderation.
(20 seconds later)
2 minutes!?! Are you fucking kidding me?? Damn you, Slasdot, if you prevent me from Frist Pr0sting...
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/020122/business_tech_aol_m icrosoft_dc_2.html
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
This is like Mothra versus Gamillon. Maybe TW/AOL will have better luck than the Feds in pinning something substantive on the eels.
Tell me which market AOL holds a monopoly in and you may have a point.
...with the lawsuit(s) that the states are still pursuing against Microsoft? I thought that part of the reason for the states v. MS was these type of problems (MS trying to squeeze out Netscape). And even though AOL has already had their input on the matter, I guess they still have the right to sue. Seems odd that they'd just now jump on the bandwagon, and that they could have been on it all along...
"No matter where you go, there you are..." - Buckaroo Bonzai
Man, this is a perfect time to buy stock in that Lawyers Mutual Fund.
If such a fund did exist, it would be skyrocketing every day of the week. Hey Vanguard, you listening?
------
Today's Top Deals
AOL saying MS is a monopoly! Gee, anyone read anything about cable system acces? What about media access (ie fair info from CNN only or can I use another source?). Oh, and don't get me started on IM!
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
As a realist, I also see this draining resources from both companies, and whatever the outcome probably being a drag on the stock market.
Still though, I can't wait. Are the documents online anywhere?
Let 'em be man, he's dead.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
isn't it impossible to be triad (sp?) for the same crime twice? I thought Netscape already filed an anti-trust suit for the same reason years ago and lost.
--
Garett
AOL is angry because IT wants to be the only 800 pound gorilla on the block.
The corporate wars have begun. AOL just fired the first shot across the bow.
No good will come of this.
-------------------------------------------------
Damn, you submitted faster than I did. Anyway, here's the press release. I like the part about treble damages.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
Can't.. decide! ... Who's more... evil!
Can we axe them both, and start over with Yahoo!?
Kevin Fox
...and not the last. As far as I know, this is the first direct confrontation in which the two media giants are not merely competeing with each other, but actually battling with each other. I imagine that these kind of battles will become more and more frequent, MS and AOLTW constantly suing each other.
Everything is mainstream now.
Personally, I feel that Microsoft has done a great injustice to the world of computing and to the world at large by its flagrant anti-competitive behavior. I would like to say that I am boycotting the Microsoft Corporation, as they say, because they are not supportive of fundamental rights to compete in an economy. Microsoft has a monopoly due to its predatory business practices, and will continue to do so until we, Americans, fight for what is right in the world of business.
After all, if it weren't for Microsoft, we'd still be using computers with at most 640 KB of memory. Remember when Bill Gates said "640K ought to be enough for anybody" in 1981? Well, Bill, it isn't. One of my license-free Ogg Vorbis audio files alone takes more than that much space. Thanks to my boycott of Microsoft, I would like to proudly note that I will Ogg and not WMA.
For more information, click here.
Personally, AOL-TW scares me more than Microsoft; they've got that whole scary media empire thing going in addition to a large army of idiot users, whereas Microsoft only has a much smaller number of MCSEs (aka, professional dummies) to answer back with.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I didn't actually read it. Something tells me it's chock-full of unbiased journalism and ethical reporting. Yes, this long link is indeed intentional.
I'm the tasty treat nobody can resist!
IM Me! AOL IM:Tasty Beef Jerky
OK, I can appreciate the fact that Microsoft has engaged is some questionable business practices (although, it's arguable whether they're actually illegal or not).
But the Netscape browser was bug-ridden piece of crap. That's why they died.
Put it this way: Microsoft also gives away an e-mail client. But other people who make e-mail clients are whining -- they just make a better product.
Of course, it's always amusing watching free software advocates (who think software should be free/beer) whine about Microsoft giving away software for free.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
what took them so long?
its ok for them to buy Red Hat now
\\'()()T!
Before they try to have Microsoft remove IE from the default install, AOL will have to improve Netscape. Otherwise, people will just re-install IE separately, and show that they think IE is better on its own merits, not just because Microsoft is pushing it.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
One proposal is "to sell a stripped-down version of its Windows operating system so computer manufacturers could choose which Internet browser to offer."
How many average Joe's can/will download a browser, let alone know where to find one? How about email clients?
The articles I've seen on this state that Netscape is seeking unspecified damages from MS. Idea for a /. poll:
How much should Microsoft pay Netscape in damages?
- $0-$99,999
- $100,000-$999,999
- $1,000,000-$9,999,999
- Bill Gates's Estate
- CowboyNeal's Life Savings
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
The future of our browser is not subject
to the outcome of this trial. Mozilla will
march on as the best browser whether or not
it can displace Microosoft as the default
on your aunt's computer. Thank god for open source!
This is like watching your two least favorite football teams play in the Superbowl. You know a lot is at stake, but you can't bring yourself to care.
I liked this quote: AOL executive John Buckley noted the court ruling and said, "This action is an attempt to get justice in this matter."
And by "justice", he means "money".
-B
Ooh, and with the money they win (IF they win), they can go and buy Red Hat Linux!
Gee which evil empire do I root for?
I guess Microsoft, since Netscape has the shittiest browser known to man.
So, this would explain talks between AOL and RHAT. AOL would be very interested in RHAT's PoV on this, since MS has a track record for trotting out Linux as an example of their competition (which, on the desktop, Linux simply is not... yet).
"You can't literally put the market back in the competitive position it was in, so you'd have to think of a forward-looking remedy to help restore competition in the market as best as possible,"
Exactly what would this "forward looking remedy" be? I seriously doubt a stripped down version of Windows would fly. Customers just wouldn't buy it. Not without a serious price cut, in the >30% range, and can we seriously make the claim that 30% of the value of Windows is in IE?
I think this may be a case of too little, too late.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
A judge would still have the challenge of choosing a remedy that would restore competition to the Internet browser market. Netscape has only a sliver of the Internet browser market, compared to its dominance several years ago.
Sounds like at least one legal expert thinks AOLTW has a decent chance. I don't see how any judge can restore competition, without having the power to force MS to open up all it's API's...
So when are we going to be hearing about microsoft filing an anti-anti-trust suit in response to the one file by AOL-Time-Warner???
This could be better than the DOJ case because people can't say the big bad government is out to punish MS because they are so successful. Here we have two giant successful corporations going head to head. Now MS can't hide behind pseudo grass roots campaigns. Jared
Be, Inc. has an open and shut antitrust suit with Microsoft. The only thing that kept BeOS from being pre-loaded onto dual-boot systems of mainstream OEMs was exclusivity contracts that MS had with those OEMs. In the context of a monopoly, such contracts are illegal because they only serve to kill off new competitors.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I guess one corporate strategy is to sue people when your product can't compete in the market. Netscape chose a different path for the evolution of their product, and it appears it was the wrong one.
They were nailed good, but Ashcroft relizing that MS gives a lot of money to his party decided to cut a deal with them. Let's turn over themarket to you and you continue giving us money.
photosMy Photostream
Or whatever the legal mumbo jumbo for notice that you're ass is getting sued!
(intended as humor)
~ now you know
"There is no question that Microsoft's conduct violated the law and harmed competition and consumers. Netscape's lawsuit seeks not only an award of damages, but for the Court to provide injunctive relief that will help restore competition on the computer desktop. We support the efforts and goals of the non-settling state attorneys general who continue to seek appropriate remedies to end Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct and illegal activities. The aims of Netscape's lawsuit are entirely consistent with their efforts."
The Washington Post?
Ah well, I knew it was too good to be true.
One big bully pushes another big bully. Now everyone stand around and watch the fight.
AOLTW is just trying to divert attention from its loss of $155 Billion in market cap since the merger.
Anyway, the only hope I have is that maybe IE and Netscape will both get so much bad press that Opera will come out on top!
(IANAL, of course). This is the silver lining to the disappointing outcome to the government's anti-trust case. While I would have preferred the anti-trust case to have resulted in a breakup of Microsoft or other strong measures against the company, it did at least hold that Microsoft was a monopoly.
This allows other companies large and small to launch their own suits against Microsoft and have a good shot at winning. This could end up costing Microsoft a huge amount of money and effectively curtailing their worst business practices.
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Sailing over the event horizon
can't say I care who wins.
ender-iii
to avoid making a redundant dumb comment.
Can Microsoft claim that they already settled this suit? I'm not sure how the specifics reflect this, does anyone know the details?
Normally, a company to company lawsuit over unfair competition will ask for damages due to lost sales. Just what are those damages when the price was $0.00?
The lawsuits keep piling on. At this rate M$ will have to change their license agreements to cover the exer expanding legal expenses and possible damage awards for their quarterly earnings ! I wonder if the injuctive relief and conduct remedies will fill in some of the holes of the Fed's settlement agreement.
"AOL would be entitled to triple any actual damages found by the court"
IANAL
Treble Damages
Could Netscape/AOL just be seeking a cash settlement from MS?
Oliver's army is here to stay Oliver's army are on their way And I would rather be anywhere else But here today
This is the kettle, your black.
This really a battle for a monopoly, not AOL/TW trying to be the good guys..
It is cool that another corporation is picking a fight with another....
from the article:
All of Microsoft's agreements, including the non-exclusive ones, severely restricted Netscape's access," Jackson wrote
doesn't that include the agreement between AOL and mircosoft? the AOL-browser still uses Internet explorer.
I wonder how they are going to explain that to a judge.
Hopefully much smarter people than me are out there working on a remedy, but I just don't see how they could help anything without a severely drastic course of action. By severely drastic I mean something like forcing all OEM's to sell dual boot machines with an OpenSource solution installed as the alternative.
~ now you know
Except AOL does not employ anticompetive tactics and run others out of the business.
Except for those people who create independently developed DVD player or eBook reader applications and whose site is reachable from the United States.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Let these two behemoths duke it out while open source initiatives quietly outflank them both. While both sides are tied up in endless legal battles and tit-for-tat lawsuits, the rest of the world will keep innovating and possibly develop technologies which will make whatever they are fighting over sadly obselete.
*gets some popcorn*
This should be at the least an amusing development.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
As far as my limited knowledge of the situation allows, I feel that this is just going to lead to chaos.
:P).
/.ers are gonna have to turn street samurai...
One one hand, everyone hates MS. They're big, ominous, and imposing. They are known, however, for making at least a few quality products.
On the other, we have AOL. Everyone also hates them. They're big, ominous, and imposing. They are known, also, for lack of quality in their products. Their demographic is much more focused and thus more easily reigned however, that being less than knowledgable net users (I use AOL by the way, so -don't- start flaming
This reminds very much, in a scary way, of shadowrun. Only we don't have a corporate court to settle this.
Let's pray Gates and Case don't really have armies like we joke they do, or else I think a whole lotta
-Eric Dizkord
"I always thought Dark Futures had to be in the future
AOL isn't in the best financial shape right now - the merger with Time Warner didn't work out as well as planned, and they're going to have huge losses this year. I'm guessing the thinking here is that if they can reach a huge out-of-court settlement with MS, it'll help them get back in the black. After all, Netscape's not good for much else anymore...
Personally, I think this is great. The Department of Justice, if you recall, had its hands tied by good ol' W, so they're not going for a breakup or any other serious solution. Sure, we may not love AOL any more than Microsoft, but now they're willing to put their dough on the line for this cause.
Yes, they stand to get a lot of money out of this. If someone does a good thing for a selfish reason, it's still a good thing.
Yeah we all knew that this was going to happen. I cannot wait to see what they do to redhat linux
I have not sympathy for AOL. They are just as anti-competitive in the ISP market as Microsoft is in the OS market. They are just pretending to be an innocent who is being attacked by a big bully.
Besides, what have they done with Netscape since they bought it. NOTHING, all of the improvements that have been made to it came through Mozilla not from AOL. They have not even been trying to improve Netscapes standing in the browser market.
Both of these companies are bad when it comes to what is best for the consumer. It would be nice if they could both be split up into a couple companies each.
I think that design was implemented before AOL bought Netscape, but still why haven't they switched over to using Netscape as the AOL browser?
~ now you know
This answers the question: Who is More Evil than Satan. AOL obviously ;-)
tsia
...
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
A really Big Deal (TM).
Let's just hope that while AOL is there, they give the OSS Community a little "shout-out" to let the DoJ et al realize how badly they hosed us.
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
Apple needs to buy MTV so we can get a nice 3 way going. Millions of lawsuits will go around and all 3 companies will be broke and we will start over with smaller companies buying up the pieces.
Or maybe MS and AOL will form armies and well have the Netscape IE civil war?
Either way nothing will survive except lawyers, roaches, and Linux.
(I wouldnt be supprised if MTV was already owned by someone. But i just dont really care to look it up)
at least one of them will lose.
As for Netscape... how are they meant to compete when Microsoft (which owns the OS) ships IE with the OS and threatens manufacturers to dump Netscape's browser or face higher OEM costs and other punitive measures? You cannot compete in a market if your competitor has systematically destroyed it.
I hope AOL wins a lot of money so they can send out USEFUL cd's, not just read-only ones. I sure would like them a lot more and just might install AO.... ok maybe not.
~ now you know
Okay, like many others, I don't know if I am happy or sad to see this. If this really meant that standards would be adhered to (here I mean legal as well as technical) then great, since by this time I doubt anyone thinks M$ is without blame ('cept maybe of course Bill G).
/.), maybe we'd all be a little happier.
Unfortunately, I just can't help but think this just means that AOLTW just wants a bigger share of the pie (either direct through their browser or indirect through cash judgements). If AOLTW were not perceived as nearly as evil (at least here on
So, other than putting a crack in the armour of M$, what does AOLTW have to gain? Cash from a judgement (remember, M$ has about $36 Billion in the bank right now) isn't likely to mean much. AOLTW doesn't offer an OS (rumours to the contrary about acquiring RedHat ignored while proof is in the offing). MSN doesn't appear to be a threat to AOLTW. M$ is aiming to the home with the XBox (which will take years to come to any sort of fruition).
I'm not trying to be ignorant, but really, what is in this for AOLTW?
-- The Hollow Man
Non illegitimati carborundum
until he wins, and you have to worry about getting trampled.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Of course, they'd be exempt from fixing website code that actually conforms to a published standard. Maybe the punitive damages would be to make them fix Mozilla and Konqueror so that they correctly implement the standards as well.
I'm getting really tired of having to try 3 different browsers before I can get through an online purchase.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Right. As much as I realize that AOL wants to protect it's business interests, and that going after their competition is a wise move, and that there are differences between AOL and MS's situation, this seems kinda lame.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
..bacause AOL IM is installed/launched automatically with AOL (at least it used to be, not being an AOL user I'm not 100% on this). That's bundling, and is just plain wrong (at least according to everybody who whines about MS).
The Enron disaster brought out the fact that Ashcroft has received Campaign contributions not only from Enron but also from ***MICROSOFT***!!!
He already has recused himself from the Enron case, so he should have also recused himself from the DOJ/Microsoft anti-trust suit, as well as any future Microsoft cases.
Durnit! I'm 2 stories behind...
Speak truth to power.
have you ever noticed (in windows) when your computer is going really slow and you pop up your start menu and it seems to draw the same way a slow web page would. MS has integrated IE so much that they're going to have nothing left if they have to take it out of the default install. So what's my point? I don't know! I guess if MS loses they can be tried again and again until they have nothing left? Yes, that's my point and I am sticking to it.
ender-iii
I don't friggin' get it.
AOL is the largest ISP in the world.
AOL has the most subscribers in the world.
AOL owns Netscape.
AOL bundles IE with it's software.
huh?
What are they gonna sue for? Stupidity?
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
As a former netscapee, I can't say but I'm delighted to see this happen.
As a current slashdotter, I'm just delighted to see anything bad happen to the borg.
... nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ...
IANAL, however, this seems to allow some multiple trials on the same issue.
Also, the spelling is "tried."
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
A couple of years ago (more?) when this whole thing started, I was a staunch supporter of Netscape. I really wanted to see Microsoft lose this one.
.exe was in use.) I either had to have these programs on a CD, or I had to wait for Netscape to download (through command-line FTP, even!)
.Net, which is the future of Microsoft, instead of IE, which is the past.
Now, however, I worry about things like the following:
"A judge would still have the challenge of choosing a remedy that would restore competition to the Internet browser market. Netscape has only a sliver of the Internet browser market, compared to its dominance several years ago."
One of the "suggested" remedies is to force Microsoft to not include a browser with the OS. I have to question, though, whether this would really be best for the consumer.
Remember back in the day when Windows 95 first shipped? The first thing I did upon loading 95 was to install a web browser. Usually, this meant a tedious process whereby I would use FTP to connect to ftp.netscape.com and go through several directories until I found the correct binary. This was a time-consuming and tedious process. Without a web browser, I couldn't install many of the programs I typically used, including an FTP client and WinZip (used to unpack programs back before the self-extracting
So I question whether the "stripped-down" version of Windows is a real remedy, as it causes more inconvenience to consumers that way. Rather, I'd like to see Internet Explorer installed and a shortcut to install Netscape on the desktop, much like there are AOL shortcuts on most desktops now. That way, Netscape could be installed locally with little hassle, but there would still be a web browser in the OS for those who didn't care.
A few years ago, I was up in arms about this whole thing. Now, I don't care any more, and I have a feeling that the vast majority of users feel the same way. I like my IE6 with its Google toolbar and Web development tools ("view partial source", anyone?). I would have applauded this decision a while ago, but now I think that Microsoft should just pay AOL its due and move on. This lawsuit is about something that should have been settled years ago, and it's time to worry about
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
The DOJ cleared the way by showing in court that Microsoft is a monopoly. Now AOL/etc. can drive their lawsuit truck down the freshly-cleared road, since the worst part of their work has already been done for them. Easy money.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
They sure have plenty of reason!
Although this post was intended as humor, it could sarcastically be used as a defense by Microshaft that AOL is stifling competition by blanketing the country with AOL CD's, while MSN only offers service through conventional advertising. I don't think it'd hold up in court though, especially since every single computer with Microshaft software asks you about three times a day if you want to have MSN service.
~ now you know
The "ugly code" programmers always want to scrap is merely good code with bug fixes for particular weird configurations added in - there is no way around that. Microsoft has always pushed out other software makers by quickly adding features when other companies decided to scrap and rewrite from scratch - Lotus 1-2-3 with Excel, Netscape with Explorer.
KingPrad
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
gosh, i can't figure out which is better: AOL suing netscape, or Crips and Bloods shooting each other in the street!
it's a win/win situation for me either way.
How is an OS defined?
If it is just a kernel, then Microsoft should be sued for including:
the Windows desktop
the Windows start menu
cd player
calculator
etc
I think it is ridiculous to argue that a complete OS-in-a-can like MS Windows should not include a web browser. MS have demonstrated that a browser can be used to manage local files as well as surf the web, and is a fundamental part of their integrated package.
Just because they were slow in including a web browser does not mean that they don't have the right to do it in the future.
Now AOL's purchase of Netscape makes more business sense now... they could get billions in damage payments now that Microsoft's anti-competitive illegal business practices have been established by anit-trust court.
Umm...Of course I'll probably be modded off-topic, but oh, well...my wife uses Eudora.
She refused to use Opera's built-in e-mail client, and I refused to install Outlook.
This causes Netscape act weird.
Java is still a pain in the neck for Netscape browser. I use Netscape Composer but more and more I find myself using IE for browsing.
One more thing. I started blocking the advertisements by puting the advertisement sites in my hosts file and refering them to 127.blah. IE works fine with it, but Netscape has slowed down a lot since then.
...like a declaration of war? I read it, and I had the same sense of dread that I get whenever I hear countries have decided to blow the living crap out of one another.
That HAS to be the most intellegent thing I have heard all day.
i'm laughing on the inside... really...
Of course I am risking the whole karma deal by posting something remotely supporting Microsoft, but here goes ...
... their browser and even their servers were good.
... the Netscape browser *could* have been one of those had the proper focus been kept.
Netscape had a good product
AOL bought Netscape. TimeWarner bought AOL.
Throughout all this the focus shifted away from the products of Netscape to the online vetsiges such as the portal, etc.
AOL has done little, if any, real ground breaking development on the browser front. I remember the good old days where Netscape had a new build every other month that they submitted to the world for feedback, etc. All that stopped when AOL bought them.
Their server products have pretty much ground to a halt as well. If you try to get support you're bounced around to so many people it is amazing you don't get dizzy and fall out of your chair.
What this boils down to is that Microsoft beat Netscape at their own game and then passed them. There are many things people continue to pay for although there are free alternatives
There wasn't anything predatory about that. Netscape could have fought back with a better, more engaging product, but they didn't.
The consumer browser war is over. The consumer OS war is over. Through consolidation and market forces we're left with one popular choice and many fragmented choices.
Remember when there were 8 different word processors to choose from? 4 different office suites? 5 versions of DOS? Those days are long gone and companies need to realize that the future lies in operating independent applications.
You're assuming there would be a stripped down and a seperate "full" version of Windows available.
The court could just find that Windows, on CD or preinstalled by manufacturers, could not include IE and that if the customer wants IE they would have to download it, just like they have to download Netscape Navigator.
Dear Netscape,
Please make a browser that doesn't suck, and I will use it.
Thank you,
-The World
And by "justice", he means "money".
Hey, everybody knows that they are one and the same. OJ proved that. BTW, he's in the news again. Girlfriend missing for more than a month and her dead rotting cat was just discovered in her home by police, cat was probably there unattended and unfed for weeks too. Something sure smells funny and it ain't just the cat.
...the grass gets trampled.
(or something like that)
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
What damages could AOL claim?
... because StarOffice is free?
The article doesn't really elaborate on what 'damages' they've suffered.
I think the only kind of 'damages' one can claim are on ones that you can claim on your tax form.
And the only claim I know of that would fit that description would be lost revenue from sales of the netscape web browser.
Geez... if they claim lost revenue on sales of netscape because windows released IE for free, then following that train of thought... the whole open source community would be liable for other companys' 'lost revenue' and also sue developers for damages.
Like, what if MS starts suing Sun for 'damages' and lost revenue of Microsoft Office
This is totally retarded.
I much prefer to see non-government entities going after Microsoft. It makes me uncomfortable when I see state and federal entities going after a company that doesn't have "clear cut" criminal activity going on. They *have* done harm to other companies. Those companies should sue.
Much as I dislike them, the government's lawsuit against Microsoft has always looked a little too much like the government getting nervous with MS's cash reserves. The gov't doesn't like entities it can't push around.
My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
Evil Empire A vs. Evil Empire B. I almost don't know who to root for in this one. I'm sure this is going to end up in an incredible blood bath. Of course, I would thing Time Warner/AOL would have more of a case had they actually tried to do anything with Netscape of substance and not released that god awful mess that they called Netscape 6.0. Anyone know where I can buy stock in Microsoft's Law Firm?
I am wondering what grounds AOL/Time-Warner has to stand on in this whole mess. This is almost as funny as when Disney (A company that over the past few years has gobbled up massive amounts of media outlets in this country) filed friend of the court briefs on the AOL Merger saying it was anti-competitive.
Hello Pot, Meet Kettle
I thought the AOL software has the "Powered by IE" logo in there somewhere when you're viewing the web through AOL.
Are they no longer using IE?
The phrase is: "You've Been Served!!!"
Yep, that is billion with a B. Do you think that the timing of the lawsuit against Microsoft had anything to do with the fact the press is catching onto the mistakes AOL has made during the merger.
2 0204/206105.html
According to Fortune, "Instead of adding up to the world's most valuable company, this merger has subtracted $155 billion of market cap. CEO-designate Richard Parsons promises to do the numbers a different way."
Link is at: http://www.fortune.com/articles/2002/magazine/200
... BLACK!
Hmm... so a huge company that buys everything in sight sues another company cuz they buy everything in sight...
Strange... almost a last straw tactic.. they can't buy out RedHat for their operating system division(geez.. that'd make them almost parallel univers kinda companies... ), so they try to kill MS with a lawsuit?
I used to think that when the judge finally called up Microsoft to announce the final decision breaking them up, they'd answer the phone "Microsoft-AOL-TimeWarner-Disney-RCA-CBS-Fox-GE-GM -Boeing-UnitedStatesofAmerica..."
I won't disagree that Microsoft has performed their fair share of monopolistic anticompetitive activities. What less can you expect from your favorite corporate giant intent on dominating the industry.
But netscape had a running head start in the browser market, and for a while, Microsoft was constantly playing catchup. Had netscape kept Microsoft in that position, then browser integration would never have been a viable option, because people would have been upset with microsoft if netscape failed to perform properly, or if they didn't really want IE tightly integrated with their OS. The fact that Microsoft already had the market share of the browser market by the time the integration took place makes the whole issue a non-issue after all.
Netscape lost their market because they stumbled. They got so caught up on insane stock prices and trying to be the supreme leader in the computer industry that they completely neglected to do the exact things required to achieve those goals. And they got blindsided by Microsoft. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Of course Microsoft has/had an almost inexhaustable source of capital to work with. They can throw money at a problem forever. But Netscape wasn't exactly broke. They had plenty of working capital and they had friendly business relations with other significant corporations like Sun. They had every ability to set the standards and run with it. When early implementations of IE with ineffective java support were breaking, Netscape and friends should have made the push to drag those customers to their camp, while Microsoft was behind.
And they needed to KEEP RUNNING. But they didn't. They chose to stagnate. They let Microsoft catch up, and clean up their browser, along with adding the ability to properly render buggy code so they would be the "more compatible" browser when netscape would break on poorly written HTML code. They gave Microsoft the chance to play the "embrace and extend" game and were forced to switch into playing catchup themselves. And that's a game Microsoft can play forever.
So don't cry too much for Netscape. They had their chance. And they blew it. They've done wonderful things, and I really wished they would have remained on top. But those days are gone. Crying about it now won't help them.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
According to MSNBC AOL/TW wasn't interested in Redhat.
So where are the white-hats? I don't like either of these guys, neither has anything but the bottom line at heart, and it's just going to squash a lot of little people. Or result in nothing, like the DoJ lawsuit.
Face it. The US is all but sold to MS. The only thing that's going to bring the Borg down are their own mistakes.
I have 50 karma myself... look, if you lose a point because you got plus mods then negative mods... don't sweat it, you'll live. You still will have 45+ points to play with, so just chill, OK.
Pre Trial
Trial
Guilty
Appeal
overturned
Repeat
I say we put Bill Gates and Steve Case in a cage match and let them fight to the death...with a 10 hungry komodo draggons! I'd even pay $50 on Time Warner/AOL pay-per view to watch it...nah, I'd get a test chip for my descrambler instead.
I can't really see this as a good or bad thing at first glance.
If AOL wins:
Pro: Microsoft Takes a beating
Con: AOL/Time Warner has more money
If AOL loses:
Pro: HAHA AOL fell on their face!
Con: Microsoft didn't take a beating
Considering the fact that I view both of these companies as fat piles of shit that can't move or produce anything of any quality lately, I guess its become more of a 'lesser of two evils' for me.
Can all fish swim?
What the hell took them so long?
Why would a service that depends on ad revenue prevent others from buying ads? That makes no sense at all.
The Conclusions of Law was filed in the Microsoft case, opening them up for civil suits almost two years ago. What took them so long?
I'll use Trillian for my IM client, and stick with Opera for Browsing.
If Opera were filling suit, this would be a different story. They are effectively the same company that competed against Microsoft in the begining. AOL didn't own netscape until WAYYYY after the browser war was lost.
And frankly, it isn't Microsoft's Problem that Netscape 6.x has been a horrible piece of crap in the stability department up until 6.21.
Lemme guess, if they win the suit then they announce the real acquistion of RedHat because they would have broken the microsoft grip and then 5 years from now everything will be AOL'ized instead of Microsoft. I'd really hate to see Aol Box's everywhere.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
...it's about instant messaging and access to customers.
AOL is hoping it can use the Netscape issue to get forward-looking remedies that will keep AOL and AIM competitive in the future, when MS will inevitably use the OS as a loss-leader to secure control of the de-facto standard messaging protocol, and become the default ISP for most consumers. (or whatever else becomes the control point for owning consumer internet experience in the future)
For AOL the browser war is already lost...they just want to be able to have at least equal footing for the NEXT war.
did I miss something? I was under the impression that Sun and AOL basically divided Netscape between themselves, with AOL taking the user software and Sun the server software.
What is your Slash Rating?
You're not the only one who feels this way.
Besides, who's fault it is if Netscape 6 sucks? Konqueror will slowly but surely kick netscape's ass.
so many to choose from ...
What's worse than a 800 pound gorilla ?
Two 800 pound gorillas !
Toon "use the F-word, Luke" Moene.
That's what happens when you (Microsoft) insist on sitting on a huge pile of cash.
All the other evil corporations look you over, stroke their evil goatees, and go 'hmmm'...
normal(adj)- people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots [DECS]
If the netscape browser is so fantastic, why is AOL's own browser based on Internet Explorer? The reason of course is that from version 4.x on Netscape was a bloated, bug-ridden piece of shit! The fact that Macromedia has to embed Javascript fixes for Netscape into Dreamweaver is proof that it sucked. Netscape 6.2 looks good, but of course it is too late. This crap about MS giving the browser away free is load of shit too. I never payed for Netscape - it has always been freely available as well, it just lost because it sucked. AOL is far more dangerous as an entity anyway because they own the media content and the delivery mechanism. How much power is that? I personally don't want Steve Case deciding what I should know and how I should get it.
To put it bluntly I think the netscape browser sucks. It's slow at rendering, and when I worked for a company that specialized in javascript ,(please don't send me simpathy cards), We always found the real nasty javascript bugs in the netscape browser.
That doesn't take away from the anti-competitive behavior of M$, but what if I made a crappy browser a few years back and tried to sue. Would I have a legit standing.
-Nuke the moon
I hear what you're saying. I really do. However, the thing that really put the final coffin that is Netscape was when M$ started giving away their browser. NS actually made money selling their browser. It helped further the development of the browser and their server products. Then came the restrictive licensing agreements from M$. "OEM's! Thou shlat only place IE on your machine. Do it not and I shall revoke thine Windows license." Talk about playing hardball!
I honestly don't think Netscape could have competed on quality of product alone once the fiery Red Eye in Morder... er... Redmond got wind of what they were actually doing down there in Mountain View. Give away the browser for free, get the people hooked, and then bolt it into the OS. Classic drug dealer approach!
Pooty tweet
Finally some revenge! After all these years of licking IEs boots - the Holy Browser Wars finally continue, and this time Netscape's gonna win.
What can I say? Viva Mozilla!
Netscape lost their market because they stumbled. They got so caught up on insane stock prices and trying to be the supreme leader in the computer industry that they completely neglected to do the exact things required to achieve those goals. And they got blindsided by Microsoft. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
I'm no Netscape fan-boy, but how do you figure? If you had actually followed the events at the time, you'd know that the only reason Netscape "stumbled" was because Microsoft came along and put ten times more money into the development of IE while giving it away for free. Remember, Netscape was only free for non-commercial use (it was $30 otherwise).
Netscape was faced with a rival that had an order of magnitude more resources and cut off their major source of revenue for development. As a result their browser became a buggy mess as they didn't have the time to do the decent development there were doing before.
Let's be very frank here: Netscape died because they were forced out of business by anti-competitive business tactics of a monopoly power. Period. Netscape 4.x sucked because of this pressure, not in spite of it.
- j
As much as I'm a fan of competition. I hate to see useless lawsuites like this. It's not like Netscape is going to be able to sue themselves into profitabillity. They're going down the tubes... there's no reason to waste resources on paying for lawyers, courts, settlements.
The only promising thing is perhaps Orin Hatch won't be involved with this one.
As I recall, AOL chose to stick with an IE-based browser in their latest iteration of the AOL software. If I wanted to take seriously this complaint from AOL about Microsoft being so anti-competitive, I'd like to see AOL stick to their guns and use Netscape/Mozilla as their main browser.
Or even better: give AOL users a choice!
Still, maybe this is all just part of a larger plan: "See, Your Honor?!? We can't even use the browser we own and develop because the defendant's anti-competitive business practices have unfairly made IE the standard browser that web site authors design for. If we used our own browser, our users would complain that too many sites didn't work!"
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
check this.
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
Netscape never had the opportunity to stop Microsoft from playing "embrace and extend", as there was no way for them to stop MS bundling IE with every copy of Windows. No matter how good Netscape was, once MS began to force Windows users to have a copy of IE, it was all over.
It's not whining to sue MS over illegal actions, and it just might help Opera survive. It's important to note the IE is a great way to spread your virus, trojan horse or worm programs. We need to have competition in the browser market, and a lawsuit is the only thing that MS pays attention to.
The Internet has no garbage collection
Perhaps one remedy worth considering is that Microsoft is prohibited from having OEMs and is prohibited from having Windows pre-installed on computers for a period of ten years. If you want Windows, you'd have to buy it separately and install it yourself. One might also impose a requirement that in any location where Microsoft software is being sold, a minimum amount of adjacent shelfspace must be allocated to competing software. This would destroy the illusion of Windows being free and would allow other OS vendors an opportunity to have their option considered.
"You've got spyware!"
[Insert ad here for ad-aware, LOL].
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
And not the other way around?
...Are Slashdot readers in favour of Microsoft or AOL-TW winning this particular case? A majority on either side might reveal a lot about the Slashdot community. If readers feel that AOL-TW is wrong in their suit, they are dismissing one of the strongest and most widely known issues securing Microsoft's status as the Evil Empire, the Borg or any of the other pseudonyms assigned to the company in allusion to their allegedly anti-competitive practices, thereby almost completely forefeiting(sp?) their argument against the company in that field. Conversely, if readers felt that Microsoft is getting what was coming to it for distributing superior software for 0% the price of a competitor, thereby nearly driving it out of existence (or so AOL-TW claim, but I know quite a few people who still use Netscape regularly), then Linus better watch the fuck out!
Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. I was just calling to tell you that you're black. Thanks, see you later.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Wow someone from activewin.com actually said that they are right to sue!
l in eIndex=6330&Group=1
http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?Head
Name one that is?
Would such a ruling apply to Mac, Linux, Solaris, Irix.....
Hrm. The same source who started this rumor of AOL buying Red Hat? Of course I'm kidding with that line of thinking. God, I'm such an ass.
Well, this sure is interesting. Maybe I'm thick, but I didn't see this one coming. Nice timing, they could align themselves with the nine states, which would be a pretty damn strong team against MS.
I'm so confused! I abhore(sp) MicroSoft. I don't like AOL. But given the lesser of two evils...
GO AOL!
God i love being a hipocrite(sp) (see other posts).
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Seriously, i've never heard of it before.
Also how are they meant to compete when netscape, at least the 4.* series which most people think of when you say "Netscape", is such a pile of shit.
If they're going to start going on about Netscape, AOL needs to push the 6.* series MUCH harder.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Isn't there some sort of limitation on how many people can sue a person/company (same thing in the US) for the same thing ?
This crap against Microsoft is getting old. If people didn't want to use IE on most WIN32 PCs, and programmers didn't want to code for IE, there's nothing stopping them from using something else.
After all, Microsoft as a company that makes both an OS ans a Web-browser (which happens to be fully integrated with the OS). Who's to say they have to give the option to package the OS with someone else's browser?
Isn't that like GM being forced to give the option to include either their own air-conditioning system, or one from Ford!
Stupid Canadian side-note:Is sueing someone the only way to compete in the American market? Seems to me like the new "American-Way", is to sue someone today!
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
The Lawyers... ;)
At least they're the lesser evil this time
The browser wars are over and Microsoft won by a landslide. Now AOL is stuck with a broken browswer that isn't compatible with any web page that's been updated since 1996.
This is so blatantly AOL's way of saying, "Our browser sucks, we wasted our money, and we want MS to pay for our mistake."
Unless this is some sort of Marx/Engels thing, I don't follow you. Microsoft broke the law by leveraging their market to runoff a smaller competitor. AOL isn't giving away anything for free (except 1000 hours over 45 days, ~22.3 hours per day for you people on amphetamines), they just get bigger and ad more content.
I'd have been shocked if AOL hadn't made this move, though they'll likely get a large damage award, I'm interested to see what happens with this constant integration of competitors products. AOL is in the position to do the damage that Ashcroft's wimp-out isn't doing. About time.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For the past several years we had Netscape 4.x, the bastion of stability and standards compliance, available to the world, and people still use IE. Go figure.
Netscape had their chance, they blew it with the total crap known as Netscape 4, any decent company would have killed software that was as bug ridden as Netscape was.
Oh yah, they did kill it. AOL picked IE as their default browser.
Why don't they just merge? They know they want to. We're all going to end up working for the one company that ownz the world anyhow. ;)
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Netscape lost their market because they stumbled . . . And they got blindsided by Microsoft. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Then they're lucky as hell, 'cause to the court it's sure gonna look like all of that "stumbling" corresponds a little too well with Microsoft cutting off Netscape's sole revenue stream.
Maybe Netscape slipped and fell on the pavement, but Microsoft was standing there throwing rocks. Looks pretty incriminating to me.
-Erik
Is there any chance the judge will force M$ to open up the source to IE? If the source code was opened up, would that be any help to the WINE people in reverse engineering the windows API's?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I don't think its fair to say that Netscape failed because they stumbled. Remember, they were a struggling startup, who had three main sources of revenue, browser licenses, server software, and portal advertising (although I don't think that amounted to much).
So here comes microsoft with deep pockets, and they start giving their browser away. It was a great plan. They basically financed the cost of developing the browser, by integrating it with their OS (windows 95) and selling the two combined as a new product. Meanwhile, Netscape finds its oxygen slowly being cut off.
So then they get bought up by AOL, who is willing to give up on the browser war just to pursue the portal property and server software, which at the time seemed like valuable landscape. Now development of the browser has stumbled, but thats what happens when you go low-budget on development.
But microsoft is very guilty of dumping. They basically lowered the price to 0 to get share and hurt the competition, outwaited them, and then got the money back with the next release of the OS.
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
You all take a good look at this lump of shit, remember what it looks like. You fuck up in a firefight and I goddamned guarantee you a trip out of the bush - in a body bag! Out here, assholes, you keep the shit wired tight at all times. And that goes for you, shit-for-brains. You don't sleep on no fucking ambush. And the next son'bitch I catch coppin Z's in the bush, I personally am gonna take an interest in seeing them suffer. I shit you not. Doc, tag 'em and bag 'em.
So are you in favor of the lawsuit or against it?
You are obviously a Windows user who hasn't used Linux (or at least in a long time.) Both Galeon and Konqueror are significantly better than Explorer. More speed, more customisable and - best of all - tabbed browsing. And a better rendering engine. And better bookmark management. Shall I go on?
Mozilla seems slightly slower than IE though IMHO, but browsers are one app that Linux has coming out of its ears.
Interesting.
I wonder if they're doing this because the government already said they were guilty, or because they don't want people to see the price increase they just announced. We're fighting the big bad M$, we had to raise our price 50%, though.
Geez...
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
AOL is almost finished programming Netscape as Mozilla is about to reach the big 1.0. Add to this the fact that Microsoft is still keeping other browsers at bay by bundling their browser with the OS.
My conclusion is that unless AOL wins this case, Netscape has no chance of becoming the dominant browser again.
You know why people chose Netscape over IE?
Because, if you had images in Netscape without width and height tags, Netscape wouldn't show you anything until every single image loaded.
IE, on the other, would. It would then throw in the images as they got loaded.
The result? On most pages, IE appeared to be about a million times fast... whereas Netscape would often be stuck waiting for an ad to load or something and just sit there with a blank screen.
There were similar things with incomplete table tags. If the HTML was incorrect, or if the page didn't finish loading properly (a not uncommon occurance over modems) IE would show you the page, Netscape would show you a nice blank screen.
And Netscape *never* fixed that. (Mozilla doesn't count.) All this bundling, and giving away free, and all that shit is secondary - the main reason is, their product stuck. Anyone who's used Netscape 4, and is honest, can tell you that.
This is the battle ground for control of digital content. With it's recent Xbox moves into a home entertainment console and media rights initiatives Microsoft is setting itself up to be the owner of the interface between people and digital media. AOL Time-Warner has/wants a huge stake in the digital media arena. With this action AOL/T-W hopes to wrest control from the grabbing arms of Microsoft which appear to be grabbing up the digital media realestate by extension of their desktop monopoly. Where the final control ends up is anyones guess.
Can we hope that AOL/T-W will push for an open interface to digital media? I think not.
All publishers have a clear interest in strict digital rights controls.
okay....you obviously know nothing about what Netscape are suing about - so lemme tell ya...
:)
Netscape gave away their browser for free use....and after IE was released, they gave it away for commercial use. THIS WAS NOT WHERE THEY MADE MONEY.
The Nescape server software (web services, email etc) as what companies, governments and educational institutions were paying for. You could buy NT 3.51 Workstation, and install the Netscape services, and have a full fledged server. So what did M$ do? Changed the licenses for NT 4.0 Workstation so that you had to buy the Server version if more than 10 people were accessing the computer. Obviously people would have to buy the MS server, so they didn't bother buying the netscape one......and now what is the cost?
Exchange
I think you'll find the web will become considerably more friendly towards Mozilla & Netscape 6.x when AOL uses the Gecko engine in its clients. AFAIK the Compuserve is going to switch over pretty soon now.
Is this like how AOL/TW is buying Redhat or is this factual?
For that matter, hasn't it already been tried? Remember the suit about how Microsoft embeds I.E. into it's operating system and distributes it with pc's. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll believe it when I see it.
And here's a clipping I saw under the local sports section, as well as business.
Tickets went on sale today after a record time decision by the judge presiding over the AOL Time Warner vs Microsoft anti-trust case entailing that Steve Case would get his request to challenge Bill Gates to an obligatory 10 rounds inside a boxing rings. After securing a location in Las Vegas and a date for the event, the announcement was made that Steve Jobs would referee the event.
Ticket sales will go to the Netscape division of AOL Time Warner, but the sales are expected to be lackluster. Apparently the public at large could not tell the difference between the respective geeks or cared at all who won as long as they still got Email viruses on a regular basis through either AOL or Outlook, as told by a recent poll.
Well, I can dream of such an event...
In the 2000 election cycle Microsoft gave approximately 56% of their contributions to the Republican party. Guess where the other 44% ($996,792) went.
I'd say that if you believe Microsoft buys politcial influence you have to admit that they bought it from both sides.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
you are definitely gay
You mean Godzilla, perhaps?
This is my own personal favorite metaphor for AOL vs. MS. Sic one monster on the other and pray there's something left of Tokyo when they're done.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
I guess one corporate strategy is to sue people when your product can't compete in the market. Netscape chose a different path for the evolution of their product, and it appears it was the wrong one.
.Net and other "services" until they are stopped.
Yes, Netscape made a huge mistake in trying to sell popular software that ran on Windows. They happened to create a market that a larger company with no scruples, and deep pockets, coveted and for that they were squashed.
I don't hear you complaining about Microsoft suing other companies trying to enter the market. (Lindows)
they have the capability to make sure that the news you see, both online and on TV, comes from a single source.
Perhaps, if you only get your news from AOL-TW's sources. They can't keep you from watching your local news, reading your local newspaper or looking for news online from a site that isn't controlled or owned by AOL.
I do share concern that AOL-TW controls too many news sources, but AOL's control of the media pales in comparison to Microsoft's control of the average computer user.
AOL isn't the nicest corporation in the world, but Microsoft deserves to be punished for their actions here. They did abuse their monopoly of the desktop to limit choice of software. Make no mistake, they should not be punished merely for having the desktop monopoly, but they are engaging in illegal pracices to maintain that monopoly and extend it. They will continue to do so to push their MSN,
This suit is one way of doing so, and I wish AOL all the best in winning it.
Can we buy RedHat now?
Microsoft gets a lot of shit about non-standards-compliance on the web, but in the 2.0 browser era, Netscape were the KINGS of non-standard HTML as an attempt to lock-in customers...
Yes, things have changed, since they are no longer in any position to try and dictate standards, but lets not forget Netscape's dubious history as a would-be/want-to-be-monopoly that stumbled and killed themselves.
Did anyone make mention of AOL's user base and the ability they have to install software on a users machine with little to no intervention by a user? Remember, AOL has 30+ Million members, and their software is more than cabable of down-loading and installing netscape without notification - effectively shifting a large portion of MS's installed user base to a different browser. If AOL wins (is there is a question about this?) the judge can forget about "forward-thinking" solutions. Provided that they have Netscape up to spec technically, it will become instantly competitive.
Lets look at this.
Microsoft holds a huge marketshare of computer software, from OSes, to office suites, to browsers. However, they are (for all practical purposes) limited to computers.
AOL-TimeWarner (AOL = EVIL!). Holds both Vertical and Horizontal Integration, BOTH of which are qualifications for being a monopoly by themselves. Not only do they hold a massive percentage of the population on their ISP, but they also control everything from the cable lines to the ISP to the content provided to them. They also control multiple media formats, as well as multiples of each of those!
I'm sorry- I view AOL more of as a monopoly then Microsoft even. Microsoft may hold higher percentages, but it is in just a few areas- AOL owns high percentages in a few DOZEN areas.
I'll stick with my phrase: AOL = EVIL!
--- Ãther SPOON!
From the Post: "AOL, which bought Netscape in 1999, wants Microsoft to cease its contested business practices and pay damages."
Netscape was already giving their Navigator/Communicator products away by the time AOL bought the company. In other words, they were not actually making any money from the product, unless you count their money losing web site that happens to be the browser's default home page, which only would have lost MORE money due to increased bandwidth costs had IE not managed to pick up so much market share.
In other words, what damages is AOL actually suing for? They knew that Netscape's position in the market had already been destroyed when they bought Netscape, and were quite aware of Microsoft's efforts to make IE king of browsers. It seems to me that AOL is really just trying to find some way to get some money from their idiotic purchase of Netscape, which they have yet to actually market to THEIR OWN USER BASE.
You dont have to go out of your way to be "more friendly" to Netscrape 6. Unlike the steaming pile of excrement that is 4.x, spec HTML & CSS will render correctly in Mozilla/NS6.x.
According to the Reuters report, AOL bought Netscape in 1999. Wasn't the damage already done by then? How will this affect the claim?
This isn't about whats there now, this is about what happened when netscaped charged for the browser, and MS wielded its monopoly illegally, and forced netscape to be free.
Oh, and you might as well not use ANY OS from any company sonce that company is making money of the sweat of the common coder.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
AOL used IE because Microsoft made a deal with them. Use IE, and we'll bundle your software with Windows, which will get your software to just about every new PC buyer. They also made Netscape available, but you had to get online first, and then download it. Even that was after it was free. And back when this happened, AOL hadn't yet bought Netscape. So all of this really should have NO EFFECT on their case.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
Funny thing is, had IBM come along and started building an "Office Killer" and giving it away for free, those pukes in Redmond would be the first to cry about it. Between the Ant-trust suit, class action suits, and now this I hope the legal process bleeds Microsoft of every cent of thier stolen money. Just look at thier track record: leaching university computing cycles to build BASIC, screwing Seattle Computer Products out of QDOS and lying to IBM, stealing and poorly implementing the Mac interface from Apple, literally stealing source code from DEC to build NT off of VMS, stealing code from the DiscStacker folks... come to think of it, have they actually origionally invented from the ground up anything of use? Anything at all they can say is origional?
I guess it's a good thing Gates dropped out of Harvard. He probably would have been cought cheating and been expelled otherwise. Must have saved his family some spare change and some grief.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
If AOL claims that Microsoft has no right to sue monopolists whose actions hurt them (Microsoft), that certainly would be hypocritical.
That ain't the fact scenario
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist whose activities negatively impacted Netscape, now a division of AOL.
I'm sure that AOL stands steadfastly behind Microsoft's right to sue any monopolist that damages it.
Personally, I believe that AOL's service sucks. Furthermore, I disagree with the whole AOL/TW thing. In my opinion, content providers and connection providers should be separate entities.
But let's ignore those comments for a moment. I feel I must applaud AOL for filing an Antitrust suit against Microsoft.
Further, although I dislike AOL, I believe it would be beneficial to the consumer if AOL makes strategic alliances with every company that competes with Microsoft. This means they wouldn't buy those companies, but the group of companies can, together, provide quality, lower-priced products and services and crush Microsoft.
Consider the recent rumors of AOL buying Red Hat. If, instead of buying, AOL made a strategic alliance with Red Hat, began providing a native Linux AOL client, and mass-mailed CDs containing a Linux distro with the client, this would give millions of AOL users a choice in operating systems, increase the amount of Linux installations out there, and decrease Microsoft's market share.
Suppose AOL and Linux distributors got together and made such alliances with other companies that produce brand-name commercial software that competes with Microsoft's products. Thousands of titles and hundreds of companies are in this position. And suppose that this large alliance now makes deals with computer manufacturers. If only one large manufacturer, like Dell or Compaq, sold PCs with preinstalled Linux and bundled brand-name software, it would heavily reduce Microsoft's market share and bring the entire software community one step closer to winning the fight against the giant squid.
But it'll probably never happen. And besides, RMS would probably commit suicide, so it's probably best, for his sake, that this never happens.xxxxx O xxxxx H xxxxx xxxxx W xxxxx E xxxxx L xxxxx L xxxxx
Just couldn't let this one go by:
Microsoft isn't being sued for including the desktop/start menu etc. They are being sued for leveraging their monopoly on the kernel+OS+desktop into other software tools. They do have the right to include their web browser. But as a monopoly, they don't have the right to:
In my opinion, Microsoft has broken many many laws, the most aggregious being the use of exclusive licensing agreements with manufactures to lock out alternative operating systems and products.
Heck Be (may it rest in peace) offered all PC manufacturers BeOS for free if they would include it on their shipping computers. Lots of companies were "interested". Microsoft prevented this from happening by threatening/extorting the manufacturers with their illegal "licensing agreement" and in the end only one, Hitachi, took them up. Even then, Hitachi was forced to hide the partition so you had to go through a labyrinth of steps to boot into Be.
I think if any of the PC manufacturers ever grew some balls (or got desperate enough) and sued Microsoft for predatory pricing/illegal practices, they would have the best chance of all of winning a shitload of damages. Unfortunately, Microsoft would be able to drive any big manufacturer completely out of business before they could win in court.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Perhaps tomorrow's ./ article?
.I guess we'll try to integrate Netscape6 as the AOL browser. . .but a lot of AOL customers will get very confused in the process. . ."
"Two days after AOL/TW filed suit for anti-competitive acts against their Netscape browser, Microsoft raised the licensing fee of IE to $896 per copy to AOL.
A Microsoft representative commented on the price hike, "Since AOL's contract to buy IE ended last year there is no price constraint any more. The time has come for us to charge the true value of innovation that IE6 brings."
An AOL representative rebutted, "Umm. .
"
AOL has nothing as long as they continue using IE as their AOL CLIENT! Idiots. "We're suing MS because their anti-competitve acts killed the Netscape Market, but we think that IE is OK because we keep using it and have no plans to switch to Netscape in the future". How hypocritical is that?
If MS gets annoyed enough they can just hike the price of IE to AOL and f*** them over hardcore. The loss in revenues that AOL would get from "confused users" would be so great that they couldn't continue a suit against MS -- and we all know the government will do nothing.
As long as AOL continues to use IE they have NO LEVERAGE. I have yet to see one news quote that states that AOL is planning on swapping over to Netscape as their client. It seems to me that the ONLY strategy AOL has is to kick the PC all together and then *maybe* use Gecko in their mytical web applicance. I don't see that happening. "Net appliances" went out of style two years ago. Get a clue AOL!
here.
.3 seconds more and make my day.
h _aol_m icrosoft_dc_2.html">here</A>
its not hard, really. Just put the link in tags, it will take you
just type this right in message:
<A HREF="http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/020122/business_tec
Now think of one small reason why they could have donated more to the Republicans. I contracted there during the last election cycle and a well known VP who's name has appeared on /. before and who shall go unmentioned dropped the hint to all the employees in his division on which candidates were running which systems for their websites. Guess who was running the Windows based server? You guessed it, GW.
Now I cannot speak for the other divisions and where and why their contributions went to the other party, but it is clear that there was an anti-Linux sentiment within the Windows division and hung a stigma on Gore because he was using Apache.
Now before you mod me down as a troll, realize that this was from my own experience watching BV rallying his troops during a free party for his division (think free as in beer)
Let's get one thing straight here: However M$ managed to win with IE, it was NOT because it was a better piece of software. What the industry lost with the death of netscape was far more of a blow to
the technological progress of web technologies than
just the simple fact that IE is considered by most internet users to be the only acceptable browser. What the industry lost was JavaScript.
... now hear me out at least before you dismiss this post. The javascript i'm talking about isn't the cheesy mouseover-effect popup-annoyance ad-spamming tool that the industry knows today... the javascript i'm talking about is the client-side event-based windowing/navigation scripting language that the original technology could have evolved into before M$ crushed netscape and with it any chance of javascript growing past it's infancy.
Amen. And Microsoft should pay the Monopoly tax...big time.
Did it occur to anyone that AOL possibly bought NSCP for no reason other than to have the avenue open to do exactly this -- file suit against Microsoft.
NSCP wouldn't have had the time or resources to do it, but AOL basically 'bought' a case for them to dump onto Microsoft. AOL on the other hand has the time and more than enough resources to make this a real PITA for Microsoft.
Ok, I think it's time to kill microsoft.
Let's all filed a suit against Microsoft.
I mean, there's billions of reason to do so.
You lost a text because Word crashed?
You lost all your data 'cause windows 98 crashed?
You lost all your data because you got infected by a virus...based on the simple fact that MS products are not secure.
Maybe we could do a collective suit against MS.
Request 100B$ for business and 100B$
Anyway...I think Billy say how not so cool the future of MS is.
No, Netscape chose a path too late. Far too late.
Their 4.x line of browsers sucked and was already loosing market share to IE. Then MS decided to give away IE making the switch from a sucky Netscape browser (which cost money at the time) to a free MS browser that was getting better with each release was a no-brainer.
The first NS browser that was able to compete with IE 5.0 and later was NS 6, which was based on an incomplete Mozilla.
Mozilla is the future for Netscape (either open source or branded) and it was the right decision IMHO, it just came WAY TOO LATE. By the time NS/Mozilla made the decision to ditch the old NS 4.X core MS had pretty much wrapped and won the browser wars.
Now, and with equal footing I hope that the NS 6/Mozilla line can re-gain marketshare from Microsoft. AOL should ditch IE in their AOL product and replace it with Mozilla/NS, but they can't because MS won't give them the special consideration (desktop placement and all) if they do.
If the many, many millions of AOL users suddenly started using NS/Mozilla (because it was switched out by the latest AOL upgrade) the world, browser wise would shape up to be a different landscape IMHO.
Palin...
>>Netscape died because they were forced out of business by anti-competitive business tactics of a monopoly power. Period. Netscape 4.x sucked because of this pressure, not in spite of it.
I can see where some may hold their sympathies for the Mozilla project, but the bottom line is that Netscape was a growing, good sized commercial software competitor when MS got into the game. If they put out a product that sucked because they were crumbling under pressure of what might happen, that's their own fault.
just a thought, to fill the space whence this parent post came.
This reminds me of how the Brown family successfully sued Simpson after the jury found him Not Guilty for murder of his ex-wife.
While I agree that Microsoft must pay the price for its unlawful practices (for it was found Guilty of the most important charge), this sounds a lot like a double trial to me. Many people may have hoped that Microsoft would "suffer more" for its crimes, but it is not equitable to double charge Microsoft in order to pay wronged individuals and then to pay the government (which ultimately represents the wronged individuals).
I hope that other companies have the sense not to join Netscape in this useless attempt at revenge.
you know, it's really a tragedy that netscape didn't survive to see this day. i mean, sure AOL is obviously going to benefit from the war-crimes against netscape on they're behalf, but once upon a time this type of thing might have been enough to keep netscape from having been eaten by AOL in the fist place.
Netscape was shit...it just took IE to come out for people to realize what a web browser should be - where you didn't have to wait 20 seconds for a browser to load to get on the internet. "But IE loaded with the OS!" - Stop your bitching, you still don't have to wait. If Netscape had won the browser battle we would still be using that piece of shit to this day and the internet would be nothing compared to what it is today. And IE has kept getting better and better and is still free. I remember when people were saying Microsoft will start selling IE for a profit as soon as Netscape is out of the way. Well, guess what folks, Netscape's gone! And in these days it seems unimaginable to charge for an OS. Microsoft just decided to take that step and now it's a no-brainer for an OS to be free. Remember the days when all you could get for an ISP was like $3 an hour? Then AT&T started offering their service for $19.95 unlimited. It was headline news and within weeks every ISP had a similar offer. Don't tell me ISPs always offered unlimited access either, it started with AT&T saying that people should get unlimited access. And free browsers started with Microsoft taking a similar leap and it HAS NOT hurt consumers yet.
Sure it costs a few $million up front, but there's a few $million worth of Antitrust settlement rebate! And you don't have to obey the EULA!
And look at the landscape today... Is it a coincidence that all of those products are dominated by MS? No. Nor is the condition due to MS's superior products, or attention to customers' needs. They owned the OS, so they owned the APIs, and they concealed them from competitors. End result, competitors' products are slower and have less features.
This is anti-competitive.
Here's the real reason they're starting the lawsuit now....
Mozilla is nearly ready to compete.
They have more to gain then the lose by putting the names AOL and Netscape in the spotlight again at this point.
Pot. Kettle. Black, in the worst way possible.
So, AOL/TW is a monopoly, so is M$. Only difference is, M$ has been proven to be a monopoly in court. But, AOL continues to use IE6 in AOL, instead of using Netscape. So, AOL supports the monopoly that it soughts to sue the hell out of! A bunch of hypocrites, I say!
This is great and all, but shouldn't someone point out that, whatever the case might have been in the past, the current version of Netscape sucks. IE is a much better browser, IMHO. If you have to use one of the two, who would actually want Netscape?
-- Hobbits suck!
That would be a good thing for AOL. It would show they have faith in their own products, enough to finally use them in the mainstream.
:)
At that point i'd have to mod AOL up two points
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Check here for a reasonable description of what happened. Netscape was way too arrogant for some companies to cooperate with (AOL is mentioned BTW). IIRC, Micros~1 wanted to use some of the source material of this book for their defense, as the book conclusion was that Netscape has caused itself at least as much trouble as MS did.
Actually, I was thinking of my favorite Godzilla movie, cause no matter who wins, you know Tokyo is going to be decimated :)
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
Of course AOL users have a choice. AOL can be used like any other ISP, and you can run any IP client you like, including ftp clients, other chat services and mozilla.
As others have pointed out, it was not so much that Netscape was not able to keep up with Microsoft and IE, but rather that IE was being given away for free.
So Netscape starts giving away their browser for free. Their profit idea? To make money instead from the server software. This did not work either, since IE had a larger and larger grasp of the market, and it was easier to talk companies into buying things like IIS when you could show that more people had IE installed than Netscape (this was easy to do - IE was being installed with each new Windows install).
So Microsoft cut off that stream of revenue, simply by giving away a product, and including it with their already established OS.
Make the same argument, but replace "server software" with "portal," and you see another way that Microsoft cut off Netscape.
This is what the monopoly thing is all about. This behavior could very easily be found to be monopolistic.
One thought did cross my mind reading trough these different articles.
Is it possible that AOL bought Netscape, at least in part, as a possible revenue stream because of the possibility of future lawsuits against Microsoft? I mean, for a while I believe that AOL was still distributing IE with AOL (due to a prior agreement), and quickly turned Netscape open source (so as to minimize costs?).
Putting these things together, it would seem that AOL bought something and then did not use it that much. Now, however, with the Department of Justice and this lawsuit, it would seem that AOL is getting more use out of the Netscape name in the lawsuits than it ever did as an actual product.
These things are all about money. Is is not possible that AOL saw Netscape as a way to get some settlement money from Microsoft?
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
When you saw this article, who else thought:
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
- Arabian proverb
Pot. Kettle. Black. Any questions?
absolutely nothing! First of all, the case is based on actual criminal behaviour, no matter what the goal is (money). But ultimately, I don't even care. But ultimately, I don't care. It's like the big bad guy is eaten by the crocodiles, instead of being cought by the good guys: in this movie reference, you don't really care who does the job, you just enjoy the closure.
And to continue in the same tone, I'll just sit back and watch the show. Ahhhh... hey, pass the popcorn.
(and to the hell with karma, I know I'll end up slaughtered by some MS employee-turned-slashdot-moderator)
Sigged!
The branded online community market.
Which market does Microsoft hold a monopoly in? The browser market? The desktop operating system market?
AOLTW:media::MS:desktop.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Pull your head from your sphincter: Apple, RedHat, Sun and SGI do not consitute monopolies, nor have federal courts found that they engage in illegal business practices.
Great! Now it won't balls up my tables!
When it loses it's unbearable slowness it may have me as a user.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
I guess that's why they make "Slowaris" too.
I still think (NS (IE *) > (NS > 6.0 and derivatives) > *
What is your Slash Rating?
Microsoft also denied API access to Netscape. Read the materials.
Netscape 4 did not suck. It was much better than IE3 and 4, which were its contemporaries.
You can argue all you want about why Netscape didn't 'keep up'. The rewrite that has become today's Mozilla took a long time, no question. But it was done by a company that had already been denied any way to make money off of the product.
Considering that the parent company, AOL, was contractually prohibited from pushing Netscape as part of it's ISP package, the slow and (overly?) ambitions Mozilla project may have made sense.
Not to you and I, maybe. But with the monopoly dynamics in play, there was little chance that anybody but us die-hards would be using Netscape regardless of how good it was. Mozilla's pretty good right now, but it still isn't widely used. Compaq's still prohibited from setting it up as the default browser, even if they wanted to.
And from AOL's point of view, it might make more sense to lose that impossible battle, and then come back fighting once the courts have addressed the criminality involved.
So, yes. AOL may be guilty of a bit of cynicism, but that doesn't make Microsoft's actions any more defensible. Netscape was wronged, damaged, and deserves to be compensated.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
One bloated company bent on world domination suing another bloated company for being bent on world domination.
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
YOUR MOM! UP ON MY TIP!
Bill Gates said this at some keynote address, that IE would be available without a charge *forever*. I wonder if this counts as false advertising or breach of contract or something...
I'm a little confused about something. How does a lot of people using Netscape help them financially? They give it away free. Is it ad revenue? Are there people that pay for it?
I'd like to understand this before I comment much more. At the moment I can't see how they can prove any monetary damage was done. If more people downloading browsers (at Netscape's expense) is helping Netscape, then it seems to me they should have fought harder to keep their market share.
Every new version of IE has *something* new and interesting about it, but Netscape's releases seemed to do little more than fix bugs. I have never seen a commercial on TV or in a magazine for it, nor has Netscape given me any real reason to want to upgrade.
Instead, I dumped them both and I switched to Opera. Opera is radically different than NS or IE, and I hope some day it gets some more visibility out there because it's a damn fine browser. If Netscape were more like Opera, I not only think that the market share would be closer to even, but IE would be radically different too because it'd force MS to keep up. The way things are, though, it's hard to imagine that MS's dominance in the market is a result of it being a bully when IE is arguably superior to Netscape.
"Derp de derp."
i signed up for a computers course here at kent state titled "computer applications." this is the exact course description:
"develop competency in the operation of contemporary software and hardware applications. To develop an appreciation for the contibution of computers, software and the internet society."
surprise surprise, when I went to class today, i discovered it is nothing but a long drawn out course covering excel.
sure~ it hits on other areas of the pc world, and even goes so far as to mention that apple computers exist. but when i asked if i could get a copy of office for osx... my operating system... i was told that the bookstore may still have a copy of office 98 for mac for me to purchase.
i can buy office xp for $20~ via kent state.
i then went on to say that i didn't have a floppy drive and was met with scorn. "well i guess you'll have to use a lab comptuer then. your computer isn't adequate for our class."
i think i have every right to be pissed at this point. microsoft abusing monopoly power? sure. look at kent state.
He was tried once by two separate sovereign powers. No single power tried him twice.
This is a key difference between the American model and most other countries. In those countries there's one sovereign power that was originally tied to a monarch, and all of the subdivisions are mere administrative conveniences. All of the major laws (e.g., criminalizing murder or assault) are national.
In the US, each state is a sovereign power. Not only does each state implement it's "police powers" differently, the Federal government generally does *not* use police power with two exceptions. The first is serious crimes involving multiple states, the second is law enforcement on federal lands where local enforcement is undesirable (e.g., military bases, or to a smaller extent national parks).
This is why the modern crop of "conservatives" seem so... insane... to anyone with a sense of history. True conservatives would never support the federal government getting involved in small local crimes like possession of small amounts of drugs. They aren't even comfortable with the FBI being the lead agency in bank robberies, even if it's nominally because the banks are FDIC insured. (In truth, it's because the bank robbers of the 1930s fled across state borders and the feds were legitimately brought due to the interstate flight, but they decided to "streamline" the process and ended up creating a precedence.)
It's interesting to contrast this case (where the cops were charged with violating Rodney King's civil rights after acquittal in state court of other criminal charges) with Oklahoma trying to try Terry Nichols for murder because they don't think the federal life sentence is enough. They want a separate state trial solely so they can execute him.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Funny... You don't see this happening with Apache/IIS.
By your logic, Apache should be a thing of the past now. Instead, you have MORE servers running Apache. Doesn't IIS come with about everything now a days? (Bundled vs. giving away, sure, but isn't that splitting hairs?)
It's amazing how this is Microsoft's fault for giving something away, and not the fault of say, the business plan netscape was built upon, or the overpaid executives running the show.
I'm not saying MS didn't have a hand in pushing netflake over the cliff.. (Actually, didn't MS try to buy Netscape before AOL/TW? Anyone?)..I'm simply pointing out, there's more than one reason for the company's demise.
Let's play out the scene different for a moment.. It's 1996, and you have a choice, a 30$ copy of Netscape, and a $30 copy of IE. Which are you going to go with? Most people are probably just going to go with that Windows Name brand, and stick with what they know. (Remember when you didn't have a "PC", you had an "IBM"?)
Perhaps AOL/TW should dump a few more bucks into Netscape, and a bit less into the coffers of their attorneys.
First, AOL has no room to talk when it comes to anti-trust and unfair practices. After working for a various non-AOL isps I cannot count how many times installing or uninstalling their software completely TRASHES DUN(or dial-up-networking).
Second, netscape after 4.5x and on has been horrible on windows based OS's. I don't blame microsoft for not including Netscape in windows. Why would they want to add another buggy peice of software to windows, especially when they have not control over fixing the bugs. And netscape also falls into the "pot calling the kettle black scenario", since on many installations of netscape they actually modify with their worthless features.
Imho, AOL needs to continue peddling to the grandmas, peck-and-seekers, and chat addicts, and keep away from battles they can't win and software they would do nothing but ruin(RED HAT).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft also denied API access to Netscape.
What's your point? I believe MS was denying everyone access to the API..Why should netscape be any different?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, Netscape made a huge mistake in trying to sell popular software that ran on Windows
Oh please - Netscape's long term goal was to _replace_ Windows, not run on top of it. Andresson even foolishly came out and said so. ("poorly debugged collection of device drivers", I think the line was.)
I'm not saying that MS isn't pure evil or whatever, but there's no reason to play up Po' Wittle Netscape in this mess. They understood exactly what the stakes were (more so than most people here) and they were declaring victory years before the real battle even started.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Yeah, well I don't trust Microsoft OR AOL/Time Warner! I guess I should file one of these things then too...
What directory do I put it in, again?
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Netscape died because.. it sucked. AOL tried to turn the whole browser into a banner ad. Say whatever you want about IE, but it's still minimalistic compared to that piece of bloated code that NS became.
So the question of the day.. since Windows costs money and Linux is free, should MS sue Linus for anticompetitive practices? Or.. Red Hat? Will Napster now sue all the other free file sharing companies for anti-competitive practices?
Heck.. Sears charges $10 or whatever to fix a flat tire.. Discount Tire Center does it for free. Do they have a monopoly in the area on fixing tires? Yep. Do I care? Nope. Sears might.
This reminds me of what MS's Good Friend David "Big Fat Idiot" Coursey said a week ago:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10 738,2838875,00.html
"...let me also state quite categorically: Given the choice between a hyper-competitive and fast-moving Microsoft that breaks the law sometimes, and a hamstrung company where regulators make innovation an afterthought, I'll take the former every time. And so should you."
Creepy, huh? As long as MS keeps making his cushy-ass ZDNet pundit job easier and easier (by eliminating choice!), he doesn't care how they break the law.
~Jeff
At least AOL is not wasting billions of tax dollars and then essentially rolling over at the command of a President who actually believes he speaks "Mexican".
They're spending their own money to fight this battle. Personally, I'm cool with that.
Pooty tweet
Netscape lost their market because they stumbled.
Maybe they stumbled,
but microsoft was right behind them with an
outstretched leg, and a guilty smile on their face!
Snicker. Snicker.
Wasn't the anti-trust trial launched because MS used illegal tactics to drive Netscape out of business? Didn't a federal judge and a federal appeals court hold that they were guilty of using illegal tactics to drive Netscape out of business? Remember the famous "cut off their air supply" quote? Are you an Microsoft publicist? The "Big Lie" is alive and well in Redmond.
Crying now will actually help a lot. TRIPLE damages will have an impact even on Microsoft. Since the Bush DOJ has decided to let MS off without any punishment, AOL-TW will just have to do.
Hate to point out what should already be obvious, but Microsoft wasn't denying the IE team access to the API's.
There's a difference between a legal monopoly and an illegal monopoly. AOL Time Warner isn't actively trying to make itself the ONLY news source. Microsoft is actively trying to make itself the only EVERYTHING. Don't make comments when you don't accurately understand the difference between legal and illegal monopolies.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Doesnt Aol Use Internet explorer in thier client.
Wow, so what you're saying is only a Microsoft team had access to the MICROSOFT API? I'm speechless.
Funny... You don't see this happening with Apache/IIS.
Right. And you don't see it happening with Mozilla either; that's the power of open source. But then Netscape wasn't open source so the comparison to Apache is irrelevant. But hey if you're still keen on arguing by citing one example, I have one for you: WordPerfect.
- j
Point taken. I guess what I was trying to say was the better, stronger product always comes out on top, Apache's dominance is a great example of that. ;)
Perhaps netscape's mistake was they didn't go open source.
Sorry, I don't follow the word perfect reference.. Word Perfect just sort of disappeared one day didn't it?
CNNfn is reporting that it is Netscape doing the suing, not all of AOLTW.
This space intentionally left blank.
Which API? They had a browser working so what did they needed more?
Well, it's all opinion. Personally, I switched to IE around version 3. There were many people who didn't like Netscape for reasons of trying to be everything to everyone (web browser, email program, and so on), running more slowly than IE did, and whatever other reasons I don't remember anymore.
AOL/TW is just as much as a monopoly in the media market. Look here in tampa, only one cable service, Time Warner. One cable internet, Road Runner. DSL is abundant tho.
AOL is just as bad as microsoft. AOL buys out companies as well. Screw em both.
Corporate America don't care about the people anyways.
Eh? The choice was $30 for Netscape, or $0 for IE, which Microsoft has spent millions to develop and worked hard to shove in your phrase. Does the phrase "cut off Netscape's air supply" ring a bell? Netscape's browser sales were their main source of revenue at the time.
And how about denying licensing to anybody who wanted to ship alternatives?
This is predatory pricing. This is anticompetitive behaviour. This is illegal. Judge Jackson's ruling about this still stands.
competition among businesses is an important thing, and microsoft has been allowed to compete on a different level than thier competitors. It would be something like if in a game of poker they were dealt from the face cards only while thier competitor's were given only numbered cards. You can see how they would be kicking the ass of the competition. You can't expect someone holding all the good cards to lay aside the sure win and try to play it the old-skool way.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
Considering that AOL paid 2 billion for a Netscape that was damaged by illegal Microsoft actions (per said Findings of Fact) and that damages are trebled under antitrust law, a $30 billion or so award is easily possible.
Now, when does Gray "Where's the light switch" Davis get Billy G. to pay for the People's Republic of California being too fucking stoopid to realize they need power plants to make electricity?
You guys are blinded by your hate towards Microsoft. Don't you realise that if Microsoft is forbidden to integrate IE to Windows, than KDE should then a serious hit too since "Konqueror" is pretty much the IE for KDE. Second, you can't stop Microsoft from shipping IE with Windows, otherwise, you wouldn't have the right to ship "Mozilla" or "Konqueror" or "Nescape 4.7" with Linux either.
The only thing you can do is force them to include links to websites of Mozilla, Netscape, Opera on the desktop of redirect them to a webpage on their first IE launch. And I have no problem with the fact that Microsoft integrates the browser with the OS because I can't count the times where I dragged and dropped files from my HD to an FTP sites and vice-versa. The advantages are so big. Besides, that's not even integration, but only inter-process communication. So the only thing that really shows that IE is integrated into windows is that when IE crashes, Explorer tends to crash too, even tough under WinXP you'll not always loose your taskbar and systray when IE crashes.
I'm officially pro-AOL now. Sure, Netscape might suck, but hey. It beats being forced to use Outlook and having it increase the "Stupid Factor" when you download your daily load of SPAM. Now, if AOL embraces Open Source and doesn't twist it for corporate gain, things will be good.
With the money AOL/T-W/CNN/TNT/TCM/CTN/WTBS/etc has behind it, they don't need to worry about turning a profit. If they were truely smart, they'd at least invest in the development of open OS' and give them the kick in the pants they need to crack the desktop market.
In the future, when people have had it up to ^here with Microshaft and migrate to an alternative like Linux or whatever, AOL can sit back and say "Yeah, we had a hand in that." A good company is a humble company that comes in, does the job, and bows out without tooting its own horn too much. Are you listening, Steve Case?
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
There is NOTHING illegal about spending tons and tons of money and making a better/cheaper/whatever product than the opposition. There is no anti-competition clause that says you have to make your stuff suck just because they competition does too. A coperartion is free to throw all the cash they like at a project to make it as good as possible. Heck, they are free to then sell it at a loss if it pleases them to do so (videogame consoles are sold at a loss). Even monoplies can do this.
For example, suppose GM developed some revolutionary manufacturing technology (nanotech maybe) that allowed them to make industrial goods so precisely they basically never wore out, and do so at half the previous cost. They start producing cars that cost half what a Chrysler or Honda does and have 30 year warentees. This would, in short order, kill the sales of the other companies. Guess what? Not illegal.
The anti-competition lawas are around to HELP consumers, not hurt them. For example if I'm a monoply I can't tell the sotres that I sell to not to carry your product because it competes with mine (something MS did). That hurts the consumers by limiting their options unfairly. However I can go and spend $10 Billion dollars to make my product so much better than yours that people only buy mine. That is perfectly legal.
This is the real world, not preshcool. Everything is NOT fair. It is somewhat like baseball: there are rules and regulations ot keep everyone playing the same game, but there's nothing against spending tons of money to have an overwhelmingly good team.
.. for what it's worth.. Intresting, after all these years. http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=3220e7e 0.4271568%40news.blarg.net
Netscape was faced with a rival that had an order of magnitude more resources and cut off their major source of revenue for development. As a result their browser became a buggy mess as they didn't have the time to do the decent development there were doing before.
What you say seems to make sense, but there's a question that shows a flaw in your argument - if Netscape couldn't afford to develop a decent, bug free browser with their resources, how is it that Opera, with less resources, has managed? How is it that Konquerer is a lot more useful and stable? Netscape has had a lot of time to get their program back together and they just haven't done it. They were stuck at 4.7 for the longest time, and it was a buggy mess. Their real problem was they didn't do a very good job on their product and they took a long time to realize they were at a developmental dead end and it was time to start over.
Incase you don't remember Netscape was one of "Those IPO's" that you HAD to have. Netscape had so much money coming out of there ass it wasn't even funny.
Infact is Netscape had any brain they would have given away the browser to begin with and focused on the then lucrative server market that meant MILLIONS in licensing revenues and NO headaches. It is alot easier to sell a 25,000.00 application server and 60,000.00 in 5 year support contract then it is to sell the 1 million shelve copies of netscape to make that much money.
I think netscape saw pointcast and spent way to much money on the shortlived, buggy and defunct Netcaster and then tried to play catchup and even at one point tried to break HTML with netscape proprietary tags.
Now IE did its share, but IE usually supported whatever Mosaic did at the time, and nowadays IE supports everything long before netscape and ofcourse netscape is going proprietary with XUL and such when there are already plenty of pluginable programming interfaces pretty standard on both ends of the http request.
My quam isn't with a company making money off a solid product, my quam is a company spending a few bucks to buy the rights to sue someone else.
Just like the dumb asses who sued mcd's because the coffee was too hot, they should have been shot. People who sue to justify there own means should be put to rest. People who sue to protect there rights are doing justice. AOL lost no rights, they lost on there failling merger and they lost on there bleeding cash out of every seem so lets so.
This is like Rambus all over again on a different scale.
Drop your pants and grab your ankles Billy boy!
Personally I shy away from any ISP that requires it's own software to connect. AOL sucks, MSN sucks, and netscape sucks. Netscape is a free download. Anyone who wants it can use it. It's not as if Microsoft is stopping people from downloading Netscape. Heck if it weren't for IE you really couldn't go to netscape.com and download Netscape if you really wanted it. They should thank Microsoft for including IE in its OS so people who want Netscape have a way to get to their page to download it. It's not as if the average everyday computer using idiot who thought they got a real good deal on their crappy little E-machine because it was only $475 knows how to access an FTP site. Since AOL caters to the common everyday idiot they should be glad Microsoft gives idiots access to Netscape.com to download netscape the only way an idiot would know how, by opening IE and clicking the download button. And I agree that it's stupid for AOL to own netscape and package AOL with IE. I do tech support on the phone, and I almost want to cry every time someone says they're having internet trouble and I come to find out their internet service is AOL. I can't stand AOL, they get idiots to sign up claiming it's sooo easy, and the idiots buy into it because their commercials offer them things like, a buddy list, and e-mail, and the ability to send pictures to their family. Helloooo... You can have all those things on ANY ISP!! How many idiots will they get to sign up because of their "you've got pictures" feature before they all figure out all you have to do is attach the pictures to an email. How many idiots will they get to sign up with the promise of a buddy list before they figure out you can download AOL instant messanger and not only have a buddy list but have better features like file transfers etc. And how many idiots will sign up thinking it's going to be fast because the commercial says it's fast before they figure out that it's still dial up and is no faster than any other dial up connection. AOL's problem isn't Microsoft. AOL's problem is the large group of idiots it has as users. People who think AOL IS the internet, and don't realize that the internal browser on the AOL software isn't the only one they can use. People who don't know what words like minimize means. People who don't understand the simple file structure of a computer well enough to browse for a file to attach to an email. People who call 3.5 inch floppies hard disks and people who can't understand the difference between RAM and hard drive space. And when you tell them they're running out of memory they ask if they need to delete some things. This is AOL's problem. These people don't even know what a netscape is. And since AOL software comes with a built in browser they aren't smart enough to even bother with caring. If they want people to use netscape they need to make it AOL's internal broswer or make a big GET NETSCAPE button on their software so idiots will realize it's there, stop packaging it with IE and leave Microsoft alone.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Microsoft and AOL spend millions or more fighting this lawsuit. After many years of court room antics, AOL wins treble damages of the last price of their Netscape browser. In other words, nothing.
In an ironic twist, the Science Fiction channel will be replaying Godzilla versus Rodan this weekend... :)
Who to root for when you have only two in the race and both are losers?
before the gov't throws the whole case.
AOL bought Netscape, they're going for their piece of Microsoft. I'm sure there are other companies that will follow suit (pun intended).
Let the frenzy begin!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
AOL can't switch today to Mozilla/NS mainly because most pages are now optimized for IE (which really means they will look ugly or won't display at all in other browsers). The Mozilla guys are quickly gaining ground here, though.
And don't get this anti-competitive lawsuit thing that happens in the USA - what are they saying? IE is so good it's not fair? What a load of BS!
.NET to make their own browser more capable - why shouldn't they? They offer a new thing for the server side, and damm well make sure the client side supports it.
MS had more money to develop it? So what - were they just going to say "oh well of course it wouldn't be *fair* to use all the cash from all the other products that people queued up to buy would it" why? Hardly a free economy, if a company can just sue its competitors when they do better.
Sure - MS leverage their other products such as VBscript and
It's no use moaning and whinging about it - it's not as if this all happened overnight now is it?
Its not as if someone handed MS the desktop OS thing on a plate either - there *were* competitive products all the way from Apple, IBM, Sun et al but they *failed*. They made it, and *we* bought it - by the bucket load.
I like the Monopoly analogy - but one difference is that nobody forced Netscape to play with the $1500 - they could have gotten any amount of money from anti MS corporations - and indeed - look it's AOL TW - I'm sure they could fund some hefty development of both the browser and some "Netscape first" server side products of their own.
But no - they chose to whinge and moan that it's "not fair".
I don't get this about America - the American way is held up as a shining star of "may the best man win" and free competition, but when there is a clear winner - the other guys claim it's unlawful!!
I don't fancy a world totally ruled by MS either - but then I can hardly moan about it when I buy their products and use their browser.
AOL have a huge client base - surely they could put pressure on web sites that want their custoners' traffic to make them compliant with W3C standards.
I can only guess I've missed the point somewhere
People setting up web servers are more likely to consider alternatives that people doing the first steps on the internet.
NEW YORK (AP) - America Online Inc. is raising prices 50 percent for customers who reach its service via other Internet providers, a move analysts say could wind up herding more business over to AOL and hurting smaller service providers.
In March AOL will raise its monthly fee from $9.95 to $14.95 for its ``Bring Your Own Access'' service, which gives a million or so AOL users access via a separate Internet account.
...
Back in the 90's before aol bought netscape about the time MSN was starting, before AOL was the force it is today.....
..AOL was using its own browser at the time. I don't know how it came about about basically AOL agreed to use IE in exchange for the bundling AOL with microsoft windows.
They wanted to have AOL available on every new pc, because they feared that MSN would do well as it was on every PC's desktop. Microsoft wasn't under the Anti-competetive microscope back then.
Microsoft also made deals with apple to port office if ie was the default browser for Macos.
Then AOL bought netscape. Why they haven't switched to Netscape may be for contractual reasons although I'm not sure....
Man, it started way earlier than the 1900s. As long as there have been corporations, there's been out-and-out warfare between them. And as for the poster who said, "Too bad they can't fight with real weapons," well, sometimes they do. In fact, the vast majority of warfare is fought primarily over economic concerns.
You have the occasional religious anomaly, such as the crusades. But most is based on one group raiding and sacking another for its resources: Germany under Hitler, France under Napoleon, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Goths/Visigoths/Vandals raiding Rome, the Spanish conquest of the Incas and Aztecs.
And even revolutions and civil wars are primarily over economic concerns. The American Revolution was founded primarily in the disagreement between England and the USA as to what business opportunities should be available -- the colonists wanted to trade with everyone; the crown thought the colonies only existed to benefit England. In fact, that's the story with just about every colony revolt. The American civil war was fought over slavery, which had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the Southern Plantation owners' need for cheap labor. And then of course, there are the numerous Communist revolutions, attempts by the working class to eliminate the ruling class, which only succeed in creating a new ruling class.
One could easily go so far as to say that even wars supposedly started over religion really had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with economics: The Catholic Church was seeking to extend its power and influence into new areas, to have more resources to draw upon and more power. The fighting in Israel is about land, not belief. And Islamic terrorists fight because they have nothing to lose; when there is an economic downside to terrorism, people abandon their zealotry quickly.
I'd go as far as to say that all wars have been corporate wars, and all struggles are struggles based on limited resources.
The preferred discussion board of Microsoft apologists/astroturfers/stockholders/haters throughout the world.
prisoner# msce18xxxxx. Currently planning my escape.
Man. Wow. Huh.
I guess we really do "live in interesting times."
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Did it not occur to them (and Microsoft will be smart to point this out) that the AOL Browser is built off of IE. The reason IE is so dominate is because most AOL users show up as IE. As soon as AOL switches over to Netscape, IE will see its 80%+ share of the browser market evaporate.
Ah, I just realized it isn't stupid of them. Try and destroy Microsoft by inflating the browser numbers, then, once that is done, switch over to Netscape. Very clever.
If there ever was a doubt in your mind that AOL isn't the most evil of them all, this should remedy that for you.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
I don't disagree with you in your facts, they're correct, but your conclusion is wrong, Netscape was still ahead of IE even with counting AOL, before AOL bought them.
After AOL bought Netscape, many of their best employees left, and AOL laid off about a 3rd of the ones left a few months later. AOL's biggest mistake though has been to not make netscape the de facto browser in AOL.
I think with the percentage of Netscape/mozilla, and AOL/compuserve, they would outweigh IE usage, and at least rival it.
I don't hate AOL for what they've done (yes, I'm a Netscape fan.), but I do wish they'd make some smarter choices.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
It IS open source... well Netscape 6.2 at least... it's an open source browser. It's based almost entirely on mozilla.org code ( www.mozilla.org ) with a few Netscape tweaks.
Do people really not know that?
Ahh, but they need only do it and hear their users complain for a little while. Once there are 30-some million AOL users who have switched to Gecko, website developers will write pages that will display correctly in it. It'd be foolish for them to do otherwise.
I was on the phone with one of our clients today. Come to find out, she DESPISES any browser but Netscape 4.7.
Even though Netscape doesn't have all the cash in the world (or do they? Aren't they owned by AOL-Time Warner... bah, not part of the point now was it?) and should be given more legal power than Microsoft because Microsoft spends money on it's browser, however buggy it is (Matter of opinion, I actually think that Netscape 6.2 isn't buggy, and a few people I know agree.) doesn't mean that they will if they sue.
The ALT tags for images will only show when the image wasn't loaded. The TITLE tag, however, will show when you hover the mouse over the image.
I don't know the reasoning behind it, but it appears to work like I described.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is probably the best demonstration of Nash equilibrium theory I have yet to come across. Ironically, neither has an effective dominant stratigy.
Tell me which market AOL holds a monopoly in and you may have a point.
they have a monopoly in dumbed down internet access. They bought out compuserve, and crushed prodigy.
You are totally correct in your assessments! :-)
I think the handwriting was literally on the wall once Microsoft released IE 5.0, which was the first version of IE that had very clean and fast rendering of web pages. It was in many ways far superior to Netscape 4.x versions; IE 5.5x and IE 6.0 built upon the foundation of IE 5.0.
Indeed, today's IE 6.0 is perhaps the best web browser out there in terms of a balance of speed and rendering accuracy, pending just how well Mozilla 1.0 code is like when that is finally released. IE 6.0 is well-designed enough that even the latest Sun Java VM integrates extremely well with IE 6.0.
Also, a nice thing about IE since 4.0 is that patching the browser to correct bugs and add features is very easily done; I'm not sure if Mozilla 1.0 will have that capability.
And they needed to KEEP RUNNING. But they didn't. They chose to stagnate. They let Microsoft catch up, and
clean up their browser, along with adding the ability to properly render buggy code so they would be the "more compatible" browser when netscape would break on poorly written HTML code. They gave Microsoft the chance to play the "embrace and extend" game and were forced to switch into playing catchup themselves. And that's a game Microsoft can play forever.
IIRC they didn't *choose* to stagnate but they did choose to completely rewrite their browser (something that is almost never a good idea). They needed to stay ahead of IE with features and standards instead of waisting months and months rewriting. This is what let Microsoft catch up.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Didn't Netscape make the move over to a free liscense before AOL bought them? So that means damages are $0. Additionally, if Microsoft hadn't been whooping up on poor little Netscape, wouldn't it have cost AOL more $$$ to buy the company? I can't fathom this scenario: since you saved us money, you have to pay us. Lastly, an open source community shouldn't support this. One of the most successful pieces of OSS ever is Mozilla. I would suggest that Mozilla's success was driven by the fact that Netscape commercially was a failure.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Industry Says Ho-Hum to Netscape Lawsuit
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-820564.html
*YAWN*!
Ho-Hum!
AOL Is a Media Company Right???
M$ saw this as a threat to their windoze monopoly and dumped millions into browser development and then dumped an unheard of at that time for the mass market, free browser. Netscape at the time, tried to keep up but as a new and much smaller company with not near the personnel and financial resources, and the reason why their browser started sucking canal water.
Only thing that saved them was their enterprize solutions and hence the reason AOL bought them.
I'm glad they are suing, although all of this is really a day late and a dollar short.
In related news today, Microsoft brought an anti-trust suit before federal court today against the AOL-Time Warner company.
A Microsoft spokesperson, who for legal reasons must remain un-named, was quoted saying "America Online practices anti-competitive practices, including the way its software sets itself up, taking control over the way your computer connects to the Internet, and refusing to allow other Internet service providers to be used to their maximum potential. This has negatively impacted our MSN Internet service, as well as indirectly cost us time and money as a result of customers calling to complain about incompatibilities with America Online that they believe to be a fault with our products."
Bottom line, Netscape produced an inferior product. When people use the web, they want speed, and they want accuracy. Netscape failed to provide a fast browser. Try rendering a page with complex tables in Netscape 4.x. It's horribly slow. Even the browser-startup period is noticably slower than IE. Some might argue that Microsoft was able to make a faster browser because they had inner knowledge of the workings of Windows, but check out Opera. It's fast, and it's very compliant. Netscape lost the browser battle because it lost a grip on what was important. Users didn't want to customize the left-panel bar of garbage advertising content. All they needed was a fast browser with accurate page rendering and IE fit that bill. Put all of the legal positioning and political garbage aside, and they've got themselves to blame in the end.
then inovation would die. I E only exists today because Netscape innovated. Microsft Media PLayer only eixts today because of Winamp/real player. M$ instant messanger thingy only eixts because of ICQ.
Hell windows only exists because of Apple!
Basically M$ does not innovate, rather it stifles innovation. This is why is should be broken up!
IF we all thought like you then we'd say that DOS was good enough, why bother trying to have a market that bothered to do more!
Just imagine what kind of software and OS's we'd be using now if M$ hadn't had a monopoly for the last decade! Jesus, its 2002...we should be doing better! Look at hardware, innovation happens so rapidly compared to software.
M$ monopoly is a problem.
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
It's anticompetitive, and it's illegal if it can be shown that they had an OS monopoly to do it with.
So why did you say everyone when you clearly, obviously meant everyone else?
and so it begins
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
As a web developer I used to LOVE netscape and HATE IE for multiple reasons. However, NS4 was a horrible browser when compared to IE4. Most of this is objective when you look at the pure speed of IE (Windows API whine blah blah), the more usable UI, and it's far superior W3C/DHTML support.
"As others have pointed out, it was not so much that Netscape was not able to keep up with Microsoft and IE, but rather that IE was being given away for free. "
If this was the only issue, Linux would be dominant on the desktop by now.
"To make money instead from the server software."
Which they lost marketshare to Apache, which was also free, but also had the added luxury of being "good enough."
The thing to remember is that the WWW market started with free clients and free servers. So early adopters were used to getting stuff for free. Netscape didn't make a compelling enough argument for people to buy stuff from them only, even though they did try vendor-lockin by promoting non-standard HTML tags and other tricks.
" I mean, for a while I believe that AOL was still distributing IE with AOL (due to a prior agreement), "
I don't know if AOL distributes IE, but they still require it. I believe with version 7.0 they now also support Netscape. Nothing to do with agreements rather just convenience.
"Now, however, with the Department of Justice and this lawsuit, it would seem that AOL is getting more use out of the Netscape name in the lawsuits than it ever did as an actual product. "
This is true, and works more against AOL than for. They certainly have no tried to compete since '98 when they dumped the source onto the world and said "Here, go see if you can make this work."
"Is is not possible that AOL saw Netscape as a way to get some settlement money from Microsoft?"
It's called the "sue-Microsoft" business plan. It's pretty popular these days.
A) It's only predatory pricing if MS starts charging for it down the road.
B) I don't know anyone who ever paid for Netscape (even before IE was born). It's kinda like Winzip - you could always legally download it for FREE from their site and you could "try" it forever.
It would be really interesting to analyze user's browser patterns and see how many pages people use frequently don't work correctly in Mozilla.
I hope AOL is doing this.
You are forgetting the fact that Netscape Enterprise server was 2-3 times as much as Windows NT Server was itself, was difficult to setup (in comparison to IIS), did not have a very easy scripting language built in (ASP is messy, but it's easy), and required more expensive admins to maintain.
"If you had actually followed the events at the time, you'd know that the only reason Netscape "stumbled" was because Microsoft came along and put ten times more money into the development of IE while giving it away for free."
_ ni ghtmare.php
No, you obviously weren't around then to follow the events.
Netscape stumbled on a number of issues. They were arrogant and lost the contract for AOLs browser as a result.
They were arrogant and refused to work with the W3C standards body. Netscape 4.x was especially bad because they had lost a battle with the W3C over CSS and released a product which had major kludges in it.
Articles such as this one:
http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/worst
Detail most of the problems that Netscape caused for themselves.
"As a result their browser became a buggy mess as they didn't have the time to do the decent development there were doing before. "
But somehow Microsoft had the time. Basically you are agreeing that Netscape's problems were caused because their developers were not as good. We should punish Microsoft because they are more competent?
Since when does that promote a competitive marketplace?
You think Microsoft was the only one to destroy the pay-for-browser market? No, they were just ther first. You don't think another free browser would come along if Microsoft hadn't done it first? Does this mean StarOffice DESTROYED the market for Microsoft/Word Perfect office? What about the others?
"I don't know if AOL distributes IE, but they still require it. I believe with version 7.0 they now also support Netscape. Nothing to do with agreements rather just convenience."
From a Wired article from 1998:
"In 1996, AOL agreed to bundle Netscape in its software package but backed away from the deal when Microsoft upped the ante, offering AOL a prime piece of Windows screen real estate. AOL's decision is a primary element of the government's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft."
There may be a more relevant article, this was one of the first that appeared in a Google search.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
You assume that IF a company could sustain itself long enough to reap the oft-repeated premise of screwing every customer it gets its hands on, that this monopoly would remain in power for the forseeable future.
First of all, the economically-accepted definition of a monopoly is a business that can charge whatever it wants for its products, and the consumers have no choice but to buy them at that price. Exclusive control of a market and the prices for the products in it. That is clearly not the case with Microsoft and the operating systems, internet browsers, office suites, or whatever markets. No one would buy WinXP or Word if it cost $25,000 per license for consumers. Neither would businesses buy Access or Win2000 if they cost $75,000 each, which is what the allegedly monopolistic Microsoft should be able to do. And it can't, because it simply has a huge market share and is subject to varying market forces. A monopoly has an unrelenting grip on 100% of market share. There hasn't been a REAL capitalistic monopoly in the USA, ever. And market forces will keep it that way. AT&T is an example of a monopoly, but that's because it was government-granted, which is the only real way an economic monopoly can exist.
For a business can get too big for it's own good...just look at AOL-TW. This was supposed to be some hugely innovative, insanely efficient, blah blah company after the merger...and now it hardly looks healthy.
Consider this: governments can't force you to do anything either! The customer --- er, citizen --- decides on his/her own to live in the country. If you don't like the laws that come bundled with the country, you can look around for another one.
The one thing that distinguishes a government from all other social instiutions, is that it is granted a monoploy on the initation of force. No other entity in a civil democratic society has this right. Therefore, yes, the government does force you to do things, such as pay taxes, file environmental impact statements, install catalytic converters on your cars, set aside x number of parking spaces for hadnicapped people, etc. You are right that a disgruntled citizen who has utterly had it with his/her government can simply renounce his/her citizenship and go elsewhere. What bearing that has on this discussion, I don't know. It proves my point that it is ultimately up to the individual to decided for him/herself what is best. Not what an angry business competitor or self-righteous poltician or regulator thinks is best.
"All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics". - Norman Douglas
*sniff*
I love it, that's just beautiful...
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
As of XP, we're not on the desktop anymore. Stay tuned...
-BK
Chemical Blog
Reverse Floating Time
I hate to say it, but this time I'm actually hoping MS will take AOLTW down. Ack, I feel so dirty...
It's like seeing your two worst enemies fight, and at least one of them has to survive. The other catch is that it's definitely going to make the winner stronger.
Comparisons with Apache are not appropriate, MS did not (and still does not) enjoy a monopoly in the server marker. NT comming bundled IIS has little effect on Apache (or iPlanet), if the majority of servers ran NT it would be different.
If you do look at the NT market IIS *has* pushed other competators out. Apache on NT for example is mainly used as a development platform before deploying on *nix.
In the findings of fact it was found that MS witheld API's from Netscape, API's that made IIS run faster on NT than Netscape's server. Netscape's business model was a razor/blades one. Make little money from the browser (free for personal use, $$$ for corporates) and sell the server. Bundling IIS with NT kept Netscape out of that market, bundling IE on the desktop made it make less sense use Netscape's Server as it would be talking to MS's browser.
I'm not saying Netscape was a saint or didn't make plenty of it's own screw ups but MS did leverage their monopoly on the desktop against Netscape's browser and did hide API's on NT to keep Netscape's server out of the NT market. The case against MS is that it used it monopoly in one area to extend into another, that is illegal.
Australian? Join EFA
I don't understand this. Why is no one currently sueing for the specs to MS only formats. At least Makeing it part of the Deal. The specs for doc files and the likes are the only thing I can see of intrest. That and maybe the API for windows and Direct X. I belive that would help out more people(Kword) then brakeing MS up or giveing a billon to schools(20 Million is MS land) --------------- I don't know who you are: stop calling me!
In short, you have to believe what they want you to believe.
Yeah, in short: If you are a sucker. Why would you believe it? No one says you have to.
Being a large company makes people not trust you. Look at the gov't. Who believes anything they say?
AOL has had a great reputation of doing business with everyone. In fact, on the netscape page I see xbox listed as one of the highest searched items. Looks to me they don't mind. Considering this isn't a paid spot, makes you wonder.
Monster.com was the pop-up when I visted the page. Not a TW company is it?
Doesn't Netscape come with bookmarks for a number of companies? The only links I see on my 'Favorites' from a fresh XP install is Microsoft sites.
Get your Unix fortune now!
It started much earlier than that.
Back when Netscape and IE were on version 3, MS intentionally picked a strategy of (illegally) integrating their browser into the OS so that it could do things that Netscape could not do (i.e. things that aren't possible via public Windows API's, so only MS can do them), and (illegally) bundling IE into the OS in ways that made it (illegally) impossible to remove, and (illegally) forcing OS licensees to ship IE and not Netscape, quite specifically to (illegally) leverage Microsoft's monopoly in the OS market to get people to use IE even though it wasn't a competitve browser. (The last from MS internal emails...)
Note that before MS did these illegal things, Netscape had a majority of the browser market, a superior browser, and made over 1/2 their revenue from browser sales, while after MS did these illegal things for a few years, Netscape made zero revenue from browser sales, and thus couldn't afford to compete with Microsoft's IE development team (which was subsidized by MS' OS and applications monopoly revenue). This would qualify as illegally using a monopoly in one market to supress competition in another market.
Aside from MS' ability to generate paperwork, this should be a simple case. The fundamentals have already been ruled on, and appealed and upheld, so the only question is the calculation the dollar amount or negotiation of a settlement. And given that it's TWAOL, rather than the DoJ, I personally expect to see a real settlement for real dollars... I wonder if they can make "triple the drop in Netscape's market cap" stick...
24,064 mshta.exe
2,752,512 mshtml.dll
1,350,656 mshtml.tlb
438,272 mshtmled.dll
56,320 mshtmler.dll
62,976 browselc.dll
49,152 browser.dll
1,020,416 browseui.dll
71,680 browsewm.dll
581,632 wininet.dll
91,136 IEXPLORE.EXE
2,466,319 All of C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer
-------------
~8 Mb
1000Mb system32 - 384Mb dllcache = 626 Mb
8 / 626 = ~1.5%
1.5% of $199 is $3
Enjoy your $196 copy of windows!
The fact that MS is a software company should allow them to include whatever they want in their OS, not cater to the weaker competitor.
it's not really catering to the weaker competitor if you're allowing the customer to choose not to use you. last time I checked you still couldn't uninstall IE from Win98, but I was a Netscape fan back when I got 98 and I wanted IE to have no part of my system. I was hoping DoJ would help me on this part. but anyways, MS needs to learn to segment their operating systems and allow their customers to have the final choice (whether they believe them to be knowledgeable enough to or not). maybe the OEM likes Netscape or Opera, it should be their choice too as they may wish to market a system with Netscape or Opera pre-installed for all those people out there disappointed with MSIE. capitalism is about an open market where everyone has an equal chance to succeed according to their abilities, and creating a nearly all-inclusive platform (since people "need" Windows for PC anyway) is not healthy.
oh and AOL really is stupid though for suing a company they're so dependant on. AOL IM was and I think still is coded in Visual C++ (or something like that) and I guess AOL itself is still a lot of MS programming. maybe they should sue after they cut the strings.
I know what you meant, but damn... AOL is about 85% ads now... and not just banners, I'm talking about the "chat w/ (insert boyband member) on AOL!"
i've always wondered why MS sat through this IANAL but ridiculous lawsuit with the government. in a society that promotes a free market, and free speech, i find it somewhat hypocritical.
no matter what legalese you put on top of it, my browser of choice now on any workstations running windows is MSIE. i am confident a very small percentage of people use netscape browsers now, and i am also confident that should both browsers have been bundled with the Windows OS, MSIE would still be the browser of choice.
all that aside, i do not quite see where the legal line is drawn. does MS not have a right to give different treatment, prices, and consideration to their customers at their own discresion? or is what they are doing illegal because customers are unable to choose?
i find this ridiculous. is the Gap doing anything illegal by selling childrensware, as full grown adults are unable to use these goods? since when was price discrimination illegal? how bout if Gap were to give me a 10% off VIP discount card, would they be breaking the law? whatever happened to a free america?
regardless, if MS is were facing a prospective breakup like they were, why not just pack up their bags and move up to canada? no doubt the canadian government would welcome them with open arms--just how much cash would MS bring canada?
we all just love to hate MS... running debian on my servers, windows on my workstations--by choice. they aren't that bad people, can you imagine your grandma trying to send her grandson email with pine?
the other respondents to this thread have pointed out various nefarious accounting and manipulatory schemes that AOL pre-TW merger has been guilty of. I'd just like to add my two cents that the post-merger company is scary because it represents a vertical trust -- in essence, it's a company that produces content, delivers content, and reports on content, and those facets are hard to separate. Witness the fawning coverage received by Warners' Harry Potter film on CNN, or the Time Magazine story a few years ago entitled "The Sexiest Movie Ever" that helped build buzz for "Eyes Wide Shut" (which, just for the record, was not the sexiest movie ever). How unbiased do you think CNN's coverage of this incredibly high-profile trial will be? How unbiased *can* it be?
jf
Actaully, if NS was the better browser, people would've *continue* use it.
Even if they had IE installed.
It was the IE was so much better that made people use it.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Pegasus is quite nice & free
Yeah, but that means one of them will win :(
deus does not exist but if he does
I bet that if you are in law school and blindly ambitious and open minded, there could be no surer course to a solid income than to concentrate on corporate law, most of all if you can stand living with your nose to the grindstone until your eyes go bloodshot and beyond. If it were not for antagonism, corporation versus corporation, the work wouldn't be so long and steady (and secure).
Hmm. Maybe look at corporations as virtual persons. If we do that, then we can judge their character. Will you grant me that for a sec?
Ok. Imagine a guy who got drafted into the Army and manages to live a tidy disciplined life--governed only by his desire to stay out of trouble. For people who respect being tidy and disciplined, they offer the fella no special credit for his moral character.
My point is this: When you're forced into a situation that compels you to do the right thing, a moral judgment of you, if objective, should take that into account. I vote "morally neutral".
The same goes with some of AOL/TW's properties. Could you imagine what would happen if Time Magazine published complete crap (say, FUD) to disrespect Newsweek or its owners? As an attempt to gain a form of marketshare, Time Magazine would screw itself, and it would squander important capital assets: whatever respect the public had for the company, which translates into sales just as readily as cash registers in a lumber yard.
Because of its vast and diverse holdings, AOL/TW merits a complex moral judgment. Much of it is a wash--neither breathtakingly virtuous nor downright evil. In many ways--most of all while truly competing in relatively mature markets--AOL/TW's divisions have no recourse but to work for a living. In that case, they are just adequate soldiers so to speak.
Had netscape kept Microsoft in that position, then browser integration would never have been a viable option, because people would have been upset with microsoft if netscape failed to perform properly, or if they didn't really want IE tightly integrated with their OS.
... s'not running right. Better switch".
/. a while back ... I'm sure you remember).
... consumers just don't think that way.
Regardless of what actually happened in the NS/MS issue - I don't think people (i.e. consumers) usually think so far as to be upset with Microsoft, if Microsoft intentionaly inhibits the clean running of an application. All they see is Netscape not running well, and don't give a damn about why, even if it's glaringly clear to the 10% or so who at least know something about the technology that an app has been "hobbled", and some of them are screaming blue murder. Even then, most people just go "eh
The last time MS pulled one of those is when they filtered the user-agent string for the text string "Opera" on their UK site, and if it matched, the site refused to load - without actually stating why, of course. (up on
As I say - regardless of what happened between NS & MS
yes, we have no bananas
IE's cost is 'integrated' with the Windows OS cost. M$ spent millions developing IE, and they recoup the cost by slightly incrementing the cost of Windows.
Think of windows as a furnished apartment, you cannot rent a bare apartment, you are forced to pay rent for the furniture (bundled applications) too.
Anyway, anybody who thinks M$ gives out free software is a total moron
And that is exacly why there shouldn't be a default browser; if Microsoft (or for that matter any company) enforces their browser as "The Internet" then we have a monopoly; but on the other hand, if the user has three icons on the desktop: "Browse the internet with IE/NN/Opera", then the user has a choice and can choose the browser he is most conftable with. (And, consiquentially drag the other icons to Recycle bin when learns how :))
boky
After the negative reactions on RedHat buyout news, this looks like a giant PR move to me.
Actually, netscape DID go open source, which is exactly why they stuck with 4.x for so long, and only now are getting a decent codebase for their 6.x product.
Ofcourse, they could have just written a browser, and be done with it. But that's not a commercially viable approach. Instead they wrote a development platform, and plan to base a lot of extra activities off of mozilla once it goes 1.0. (Look at the range of sidebar apps for an example)
But MSN remains independent of AOLTW's clutches.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Right you are.
IE is not/never was free (as in beer). You must purchase an MS OS before it will work. "Buy windows now and we'll THROW IN IE absolutely free". Yeah right. Like those "free" floormats you got when you bought a new car.
Now they're raising the price of windows upgrades partly because they are SELLING you not just an OS, but a browser as well.
They leveraged their monopoly in desktop OSes to create a monopoly in web browsers. It's just as Netscape claimed, and just as the courts found.
MS owes its entire existence to the fact that they cheat in the marketplace. The courts should have fined them all the way back to Albuquerque.
For the last few years I've resisted pressures from my partner to optimise our puny website to be more IE/broadband friendly. I've found over time that when your site displays correctly with netscape 4.x browsers, it usualy displays correctly on everthing. I try to make sure every page is standards compliant.
Over all I still see the trend going toward a more diverse browser population, and most user still using dial-up connections. Personaly I use three browsers, chosing each based on experience with my favorite sites, I uses Opera predominatly.
Postnuke driven sites are interesting because there is usualy a stats link which shows what browsers and OS'es have viewed the site. This could be interesting to watch as AOL users are loaded up with gecko!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
What killed netscape was the fact that Microsoft installed IE on all machines, AND THEN FORBID ALL OEM's FROM THE OPTION OF INSTALLING NETSCAPE TOO.[*]
When your competetior is a monopoly, and contractually forbids all of their customers to not install their competetiors product....
.... you'd never guess how quickly the competetior can die.
How often have you ever seen a PC from an OEM preloaded with real nonMS software. (Things like AOL installers and cheezy games/demos don't count.) I'm talking about office suites, web browsers, word processors, web servers, etc.
[*] I am stating stuff I heard second hand, and have not researched personally. So this may be completely wrong.
If AOL wanted more people to use Netscape, why would'nt they bundle that with their CD's that float all over the place(they make great coasters)? If MS can bundle IE with their OS, why can't AOL bundle NS w/ their mini-internet-OS?
.02$
What's the point of getting pissed at MS for crunching down on NS, when AOL won't even support the product, by putting it with AOL??
Just my
But that's not the point. Microsoft was not content to win on the technical merits of their software. The point is that they leveraged their monopoly position in OS to strong-arm the distribution channel into locking Netscape out
Not necessarily. As a Mac user, ie someone whose OS is not a Microsoft product, I know that Netscape sucks ass compared to IE. Sorry, but its the truth. Both are installed by default.
This is not the whole market, I realize, but one a level playing field Netscape gets beaten like a wayward stepchild. Communicator is just _not_ a good product.
(Oh, for the record, I'm posting this from OmniWeb in OS X, which is flagging both Netscape and Microsoft as misspellings. Hee hee hee.)
--saint
Most people do not live in the US,
and they have probably not been hurt by the giant AOL / Time Warner in any significant way.
But Microsoft's monopoly has been international, affecting computer users everywhere.
It really seems to me that Netscape is the one keeping their browser from being competative. Maybe once the Mozilla 1.0 can be integrated, it will finally spring back to life, but by then it may be too late for that lethargic browser.
Get me strait - I hate IE, and only use it on sites that I administer and trust. At home, you need the admin password just to use the damn thing (since so many p2p clients just work through IE, this is how I keep my son from downloading viruses). But the reason Netscape is dropping in usage has more to do with the quality of the product, rather than what's bundled on the OS. When Win95 OSR2 came out with it's bundled IE 3.0, Netscape remained the leader - because it was a much better product. Netscape continued to be the most widely used browser until they stopped improving it (wasn't that about the time AOL bought them?). If the next version of Netscape should manage to be a better product (which is possible - the latest Mozilla is EXCELLENT!!! (http://www.mozilla.org/)), it may be too little, too late.
There goes the internet! Make way for the MSiNet.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
People (like me) who don't live in the US don't nescessarily have any reason to hate AOL (I'm not saying we shouldn't), although there's plenty of reasons to hate Microsoft. Their monopoly is international, and people outside the US have almost no protection against it. (Are we likely to see, say, the German government vs Microsoft?)
I'm cheering for AOL
Are you kidding? Netscape 4 is a terrible browser compared to IE4. And the initial disappointment over it's poor quality was only compounded by the fact that they did nothing to signifigantly improve their product while MS went on to release IE5 and capture even die-hard Netscape users, who finally had to admit that IE was a pretty good browser. The lingering presence of NS4 has been the bane of web designers ever since.
In the 2000 election cycle Microsoft gave approximately 56% of their contributions to the Republican party. Guess where the other 44% ($996,792) went.
I'd say that if you believe Microsoft buys politcial influence you have to admit that they bought it from both sides.
Both sides? Dems and Reps are on the same side, silly.
Apparently a really good book on the issue is 'Competing on Internet Time Lessons from the Netscape' battles with Microsoft'
l
I found a short review that talks about it:
http://www.timescomputing.com/19990113/eml1.htm
"The book also chronicles how Netscape's arrogance caused it to often violate another cardinal principle of competing on Internet time: Build external relationships to compensate for limited internal resources. Ironically, Netscape rejected repeated overtures from AOL for a strategic alliance.
That mistake cost Netscape the opportunity to conquer another 10-12 million users and allowed Microsoft to gain ground rapidly."
This post and some of its replies are missing one key point -- IE is much much easier to drop into an application in the Windows world than any other generic "text visualization" tool (see KaZaa and Morpheus for a prime example). And when you want to make AOL easy for web newbies/light users, you're going to want to provide an integrated browser in your app.
In Visual Basic, it quite literally takes 5 minutes to make a browser from scratch (even less if you use the browser form wizard) using IE's engine, called the "Microsoft Internet Control" in your project's references. The closest thing we have from Mozilla is the Mozilla ActiveX project (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm). Needless to say, this is not as mature as the Microsoft Internet Control (that uses IE's engine).
The way to make this point become one about antitrust would be to say, "Because IE is already installed on everyone's OS, it's an anticompetitve market for looking at alternatives." Let's face it -- part of why the MS Internet Control is so easy to use is b/c any box with IE 4+ already has the control installed.
So at least when you're programming for Windows, don't be surprised to see 99.44% of embedded browsers use/report themselves to be IE.
Now this does make me wonder if AOL wouldn't be better off spending some time making a similar Moz control for Mac OS X and Linux versions of AOL... One of my biggest complaints about REALbasic (http://realbasic.com/), a VB-like lang for the Mac OS, Classic and X, is that it's lacking just such a component. Moz would seem to me to be the best place to start making one.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Opera has just figured out how to implement a good payment system for their products. They realize, that to succeed, they have to keep making their products better than everyone else's. This is the only way that they can make money, and stay on top of things. This means that they have to spread out their resources and develop on *all* platforms if possible, and try to make their product more stable, and faster than everyone elses.
There's a difference between a legal monopoly and an illegal monopoly. AOL Time Warner isn't actively trying to make itself the ONLY news source.
That's because, unlike the computer software industry, the media business has clear-cut laws preventing any one media company from owning too many outlets in a given market, or more than one outlet of the same media in the same market. It's impossible to have a real illegal media monopoly, but given the diversity and breadth of AOL-TW's holdings, they are as close as we're going to get.
Microsoft is actively trying to make itself the only EVERYTHING
Do you realize what that makes you sound like? An anti-MS zealot freak. EVERYTHING? Are you serious? Even if MS controlled every single aspect of computing, that would still not be everything. Seriously, get outside once in a while.
Don't make comments when you don't accurately understand the difference between legal and illegal monopolies.
I don't remember seeing anything about legality in the post I responded to. Thanks for coming back with a bullshit know-it-all response, based on no fact, answering no questions asked, and insulting the poster, though.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
I' really surprised this took so long. With the justice/states win, it's a much simpler action. Netscape (or whatever it's called *this* week) really just has to prove harm and damages, whereas Caldera faced the entire burdern for DR-DOS--and settled for over half a Billion (low, I think).
I really expected this, at the latest, after the appellate court upheld the findings of fact. Regardless of the remedy imposed (there will be a remedy; the question is what. And contrary to popular belief and MS press, the appellate court did *not* rule out a breakup; they tossed everything done after the judge went wild), the basic findings still exist.
MS was found to take actions for the sole purpose of harming netscape as a product to remove it as a threat to Windows (not to explorer; it was the weapon, not an end). MS just can't spin this away.
However, netscape didn't make *all* that much on the browsers; though they got revenue, the browser's real purpose was to create a market for server software (and later, to grab eyeballs for ads by controlling the startup page). I'm not sure that there's that much to be recovered here (though it will be tripled).
hawk, esq.
I believe that's the whole point. Only a monopolistic Microsoft team had access to the monopolistic M$ API!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Your Freudian slip is showing...
Want to bet he knew AOL's stock price was going to drop and acted when its value was highest?
Pretty smart move if you ask me.
Microsoft put out a working implementation that's at least somewhat close to the W3C DOM.
i believe your'e wrong. i believe the w3c DOM that mozilla now tries to follow (which even IE is not much closer to than NS4 was) did not even really exist when netscape communicator was in beta. in fact, i'd be interested in any evidence to the contrary. remember the beta for netscape communicator came out in the summer of 97. at the time, the newest version of IE (still ie3 then) didn't even support *javascript*
furthermore, you're forgetting that netscape *created* javascript. if *anyone* had (and i say HAD because for all intents and purposes netscape is dead to the innovation world now) the right to make "proprietary" javascript (remember all DHTML really IS is just javascript handles to css properties of DOM objects) it was them.
What you're arguing is like accusing Ford of making proprietary automobiles.
Over the last couple years, the single thing holding DHTML back has been the 10-15% of stubbron Netscape 4 users. Putting the failure of DHTML on Microsoft is silly -- Netscape was the bigger criminal there.
And furthermore, if M$ had any dedication to the forwarding of actual technological progress on the net, when they built they're javascript enabled browser which came AFTER netscape's, then they damn well could have held to netscape's standard, insted of this "embrace and extend" tactic we see so often. Your argument that netscape's standard is to blame for the lack of a universal standard on the net is faulty, because when it was created, netscape had something like an 80% share of the net users on they're browser.
microsoft built a counter-standard browser first, with a tiny portion of the internet browser user base, and then used they're monopoly to CRUSH netscape out of they're 80% market share.
However the one thing we agree on is the important point. the casualty of war here *is* DHTML, and for what it's worth, i blame the large part of the big failures of the net on the lack of a universal standard for it, and thereby on Microsoft.
IE5 Web Accessories
;)
I am not sure if these are available for IE6. Apparently I'm still running 5.5 on this computer.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
You're focusing too much on what Netscape did or didn't do. But this is really about Microsoft.
Web browsers have changed very little since 1994 or so, and one of the big reasons for this is the fact that so many personal computer users are running Windows, which happens to come with a preloaded web browser.
AOL already has the findings of fact from the other trial, to show that Microsoft blatantly broke laws in order to retard the web browser market. If Microsoft hadn't committed these crimes, then Netscape would have gotten a few more installs, where people would have chosen their poor-quality browser over Microsoft's average-quality browser. Let's say AOL spends millions of dollars in court, and then the judge agrees and says Netscape suffered damages of one penny, for a total award of three cents.
Then it really gets fun, because IE and Netscape are only two of many dozens of web browsers. And all those guys have to do, is cut-and-paste AOL's legal work. AOL will have spent millions on it, but the Opera, iCab, etc. guys will get to use it for free. And some of those browsers are actually good and there's no way Microsoft would have been able to compete with them in a fair market. While Netscape and Microsoft were stagnating, some people actually did keep running. Their market penetration could have been extreme. But instead, they are still obscure, and now they'll have something to blame it on.
So I'm not crying for Netscape. I'm just thankful that their millions of dollars in upcoming legal fees might end up making billions of dollars for some more serious Microsoft competitors. That's pretty neat, no?
Of all the browsers out there (read: IE, Netscape4, Opera, and itself), it is true that Netscape 6 is the best browser that comes closest to standing up to IE.
There are a few issues that need to be solved besides the obvious speed ones:
* Lack of support for communication between Flash and JavaScript (it doesn't have swLiveConnect)
* Flash animations within positioned (non-positioned?) DIV layers are not supported.
* IE4 (and IE5.5 and up) have DirectX transitions and filters which I believe will not ever be allowed by Microsoft into other browsers unless they are forced into it by a lawsuit or something.
* You cannot retrieve a tag's content with innerHTML (I am only 87% sure of this)
The biggest problem is the horrendous slowness of the rendering engine, however for it to truly compete and win it needs to support everything IE does, barring the DirectX transitions because it's not entirely neccesary (though they are nice)
Opera 5 is very fast but falls a bit short in that it doesn't support innerHTML *AT ALL*, which is a serious problem for pages with client-side dynamically generated content.
Personally I think Mozilla/NS6 is the better choice since Opera costs money and Moz supports more, but it is a LOT slower than IE, Netscape4 AND Opera.
- Alex
AOL's contract to use IE expired in January of last year. I assume they've just been deciding whether or not they want to go to war. It looks like they've made up their minds.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Actually, your right, AOL uses IE for its internet package, but AOL also owns Compuserve, which uses Mozilla as a browser. I think AOL uses Compuserve to test the water with the new browser. I wonder how this test is going?
My guess is that AOL may switch to Mozilla soon after Mozilla 1.0 is released. I wonder how the Microsoft lawsuit will affect the success of the Mozilla browser deployment??
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.