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Microsoft to Pay AOL $750M in Settlement
aoteoroa writes "Microsoft will pay $750 million to AOL Time Warner to settle an antitrust lawsuit filed by AOL on behalf of its subsidiary Netscape last year, the companies said Thursday.
At first blush the deal looks good, but I can't help but wonder how a deal that ties AOL to IE again will negatively impact my favorite web browser." Here's a news.com story that also covers it. Is the browser war over? If so, it sure was anticlimactic.
See This Articla for how the lawsuit started.
The lawsuit is based on previous court findings that Microsoft's business practices amid the infamous browser wars of the 1990s violated two sections of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.
In April 2000 a federal judge ruled that Microsoft used anti-competitive means to thwart Netscape's browser, which once had a leading position in the market but now is a distant second to Microsoft's Explorer. In June 2001, a panel of seven appellate judges upheld eight separate antitrust counts against Microsoft.
Netscape, which was acquired by AOL in 1999, is seeking an injunction that could include forcing Microsoft to sell a stripped-down operating system that does not include a browser. In addition, AOL seeks monetary damages that could be tripled under federal law, although it did not specify an amount.
In some ways, the Netscape lawsuit is trying to achieve what the government failed to do so at trial, such as proving Microsoft tried to extend its Windows monopoly to the browser market.
"Netscape's lawsuit is a logical extension of the findings entered by the District Court and unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals that Microsoft thwarted competition, violated the antitrust laws, and illegally preserved its monopoly at Netscape's expense," Randall J. Boe, AOL's general counsel, said in a statement.
"There is no question that Microsoft's conduct violated the law and harmed competition and consumers," Boe continued. "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."
Microsoft asserted that the lawsuit is more a competitive move by AOL Time Warner than a legitimate attempt to recover damages.
"AOL Time Warner has been using the political and legal system to compete against Microsoft for years," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said. "This is just the next tactic in their litigation plans. Microsoft is investing to build new products, while AOL invests in lawyers and lobbyists to put roadblocks in Microsoft's way."
Desler also accused AOL Time Warner of using the Netscape lawsuit to undermine the settlement that Microsoft reached in November with the Justice Department and nine states. That settlement is undergoing review pursuant to the Tunney Act. In December, nine other states that didn't join the settlement filed a remedy proposal asking that, among other items, Microsoft be compelled to give away the Internet Explorer source code to restore competition in the browser market.
AOL Time Warner is using the Netscape suit "as an attempt to undermine the settlement between Microsoft, the DOJ and the bi-partisan group of attorneys general," Desler said. "Today's filing is timed to interfere with the efforts to bring that case to a conclusion."
Jury trial sought
Netscape is asking for a jury trial and is seeking damages but did not specify an amount in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. However, the lawsuit does ask for triple damages based on the Clayton Act and the District of Columbia Code, as well as interest and attorneys fees.
Netscape also asked for an injunction against Microsoft's alleged antitrust violations, both current and future.
The judge in the case ultimately would decide the nature of the injunctive relief, which Netscape suggested could be derived from a remedy proposal filed last year by nine states and the District of Columbia. One option: forcing Microsoft to release a version of Windows without its own "middleware" products such as a Web browser, media player or instant messenger.
Bob Lande, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School, sees the Netscape suit as unique in some ways.
"This is fundamentally different from the couple of hundred other private suits filed against Microsoft because it's not just arguing over money," La
I'm not Seth.
AOLTW is required by the FCC to interoperate with other IM services before they can incorporate "advanced" IM features into their system (video chat, etc.). So basically, AOL is doing what there were going to do anyway. The only difference here is that Microsoft gets to be first in line.
-- Kircle
Microsoft did not play quite fairly. When one installed the latest internet explorer, they were also changing windows DLLs that are preloaded on boot. This gives Internet Explorer a significant speed and stability boost. Netscape, on the other hand does not have that liberty.
I believe there was a quote from the antitrust trial in which a memo was brought forth by the VP saying that Windows should be altered "so that running any other browser should be a jolting experience for the user"
Microsoft may have made a better product in the end. But it came with cheating and sabotage.
Try 4.2 billion. That's not a great return on investment...
especially if Apple were to release Safari for Windows
Now that would be awesome. Safari is by far the best looking and fastest browser I use. However the release of Safari for windows is probably just a huge pipe dream.
Safari is one of the few browsers that uses native OS widgets for rendering pages. So safari is based around the Aqua interface and rendered in OpenGL. In essense it is 100% glued to OS X. Even if they did port it to windows, you wouldn't see the same type of speed or beauty in the browser simply because Windows widgets are clunky, ugly and slow.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
The browser wars aren't over until IE and Netscape are but smoldering craters, and Mozilla is the victor.
Who pays for most of Mozilla's development? That's right, AOL, which just announced a licensing deal to use Internet Explorer instead.
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I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to make it sound like Safari is based on Netscape's code, but it's based on KHTML for anyone who's unsure.
how extremely convenient of you to leave out the biggest innovator of them all, opera (http://www.opera.com).
Safari is one of the few browsers that uses native OS widgets for rendering pages.
Few? I thought Mozilla (and derivatives) were relatively unusual in not doing so?
So safari is based around the Aqua interface and rendered in OpenGL.
The OpenGL rendering is done by Quartz Extreme and has nothing to do with Safari. Applications running on Longhorn will also be rendered in OpenGL.
In essense it is 100% glued to OS X.
The front-end is written in Cocoa, which is indeed tied to OSX at the moment. Apple had looked at releasing a win32 port of Cocoa (code-named RedBox I think) but it never saw the light of day, which I think is unfortunate. I'd still like to see it.
iTunes is written in Carbon, which is even more tied to OSX (and classic Mac OS). They've promised to release a Windows version by the end of the year. Anything is possible.
Even if they did port it to windows, you wouldn't see the same type of speed or beauty in the browser simply because Windows widgets are clunky, ugly and slow.
Windows widgets are slow? Compared to Mac OS X widgets? Have you used Win2k recently, or WinXP with the Fisher-Price theme turned off? Absolutely no argument to clunky and ugly, but I wouldn't call Mac OS X's UI fast.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
charging that the NCSA team used Unix source code in their browser code in Mosaic, and all subsequent versions of all browsers violate SCO's intellectual property.
Internet Explorer is also based on Mosaic, licensed from Spyglass. As I recall the license stated that Spyglass would be entitled to a percentage of all sales of Internet Explorer, which Microsoft then began giving away for free. By the time they announced Internet Explorer and Windows were one and the same, Spyglass was already out of business.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
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Okay, maybe Safari isn't exactly innovative. And it does cost you whatever an OS X capable Mac costs.
On the plus side, it's a Really Slick browser. And it is fast. As a bonus, the html rendering engine is Open Source (KHTML as I recall).
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Sign up for a free AIM, MSN, YM and ICQ account. Then go grab gaim :-)
Nuff said.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The licensing of WMA is non-exclusive. Notice they are also licensing AAC technology as well.
It's got a lot of those small features that make Apple stuff so damned cool.
Stop/Reload use the same button, depending on whether or not the page is loaded. Why didn't anyone else think of this?
The bookmark manager is so sweet it's been known to make grown men cry. So cool that the Camino guys are working on copying it.
Three meg or so download. Remember when Opera could claim this?
SnapBack makes getting back to search results very easy.
Spell-checking in textareas. No tpyos in this post!
So, no, it's not going to revolutionize browsing or anything. Since browsing technology has likely reached it's apex, all that's left are the small things.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
M$ will never include image and popup blocking (think about it). They may add tabbed browsing in the future, but there is no real rush. Like you said, they alreay have their 95% so why do anything innovative or steal another idea?
Maybe I'm starting to sound like a zelot... But if zelot means hating the things that M$ does, sign me up.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
... and for the forseeable future most of them will be using Internet Explorer ...
AOL's version of IE has little or nothing to do with the regular MS offering. Most AOLers do not know or care what code base delivers their webpages.
Any browser functionality is encapsulated within the AOL interface, and you never know if it is Netscape, IE, or whatever.
I don't think that's going to happen. From the Mozilla FAQ:
Mozilla 1.0 is a fully functional technology demo for those interested in seeing what can be done with Mozilla technology, and those who want to create Mozilla-based products and packages. The intended target audience is the development community. Mozilla is free software, so any person or company is free to alter and redistribute it under the terms of the licence.
While Mozilla 1.0 (as released by mozilla.org) is ready to be used comfortably by the general user - and those wanting to use Mozilla as released by mozilla.org are more than welcome to do so - mozilla.org has no resources to offer end-user support. However, mozilla.org always invites new testers and bug reporters.
" Or you could install A pop-up stopper for free and she can continue to use IE."
Sure, she can install yet another program that has to work on top of her already buggy web browser, and then she can continue to use IE. And what does use of IE entail? ActiveX vulnerabilities, browser crashes, cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, stealth software installations (gator/Xupiter, etc), and other assorted issues.
"Does Firebird work well with Flash/Java and the other plug-ins we do desperately need?"
Yes, it does. It has for a long, long time.
Does IE have tabbed browsing, themes, radial context menus, mouse gestures, integrated pop-up and script/javascript supression, image blocking, integrated google search (from the address bar), integrated cookie management, forms manager, web development suite, bug tracking, regular releases, good security, and very strong stability?
Can you view its source code?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I think M$ was too agressive about many things, but that doesn't make them a monopoly.
No, their operating system being used on 95% of the computers in the world and the application/compatibility barrier which forces anyone who would try to use another operating system to go without 90% of the world's software is why they're a monopoly.
Remember, it's not illegal to have a monopoly, it's illegal to abuse it in certain ways to extend one's monopoly domination into other fields, which is what Microsoft was actually convicted of.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
And for those who don't remember, Microsoft has quit W3c recently and some time ago it was revealed that they had filed for a patent describing the the use of "style sheets in a publishing system - 5860073" (which is CSS). A patent which they acquired back in 1999, and I believe right under everybody's noses.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me