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AOL Lays Off 50 Netscape Coders
xcable points out a CNET story which begins "America Online on Tuesday said it has laid off 50 employees involved in Web browser development at its Netscape subsidiary amid a reorganization of its Mozilla open-source browser team," and offers a reminder that "AOL recently made a deal with Microsoft to use IE in future AOL releases." This adds a bit more detail to yesterday's (updated) story about the establishment of the Mozilla foundation.
If Mozilla surpasses IE in the next couple years, do you think AOL will try to bail on Microsoft? This could get interesting. The litigation is over for now so the browser wars must begin again... as if they ever ended.
What the hell are all those guys doing there?
All the best,
--Bob
As long as Steve Case was there, AOL was never going to cozy up to MS. Now that he's gone, you'll probably see a lot more of this now that AOL has to run themselves as a profit making concern.
$2 mn. for 10 coders for the Mozilla project isn't much, after you consider other expenses. I think AOL is acting as I'd predicted some time back - quick death for Netscape, slow poison to Mozilla, and surrender to the IE devil...
But then, to expect better from a company that settled a lawsuit with MS (for the latter's guilty conduct, mind you) is a bit too far.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Looks like AOL is trying to untie itself from Netscape and Mozilla as much as possible. By establishing and funding the Foundation, they continue to make the browser possible without tying themselves to it. The seeming hypocrisy of AOL using the IE browser (so they can stay on the Windows desktop) while developing Mozilla is now resolved.
Saddening, but understandable from a business perspective. Hopefully every one of those coders will be rehired by the Foundation so they can continue to do what they do best, with or without AOL's direct support.
I bet Microsoft's happy to see another competitor dying, though.
And this really isn't meant to be a troll, I just wanna know...
Does anyone here actually use Netscape as their default browser?
If you do, why? Is it solely for political/moral/whatever reasons, or does it offer some technical feature that you have not found in another browser?
How many people here have Netscape as a browser on their computer NOT as a primary browser, and why did you install it? WHy is it not the primary browser?
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I'm guessing there are some legal strings attached, but I wonder whether a fully AOL-capable version of Mozilla, distrbuted almost like the original AOL virus itself (in this case, I would, for example, bring over an install CD to help my AOL-using parents to move beyond IE... even better if they could get around AOL 7.0 or whatever they're using). Yes, they can use whatever browser they want, but how about an email client that works?
Is there a legal barrier in place to prevent this, especially from former (and whoafully under appreciated) employees ? Since AOL never followed through while they were there, I think the only real justice at this point would be to let loose better, cross-platform software for the AOL userbase out there. Who knows, maybe some linux users will make the switch to AOL...
As an aside, a few troll comments here and there have suggested that now IE can be the one true client to create web content for... I give such commentary little credence, but is the SCO action on IBM (et al.) and the AOL action on Mozilla just bad timing, or is the fact that Microsoft money flows to both make any more interesting their coincidence?
Just a thought. Posted using Moz 1.4, by the way.
There the proof then, competition is good for jobs because more people work on competing products.
50 Netscape codes go, but no more people are needed to work on IE.
So if you want more jobs, make sure there's more competition, not more retrictive copyright laws.
Simple.
What sort of buisness decision is this that effectively cuts off their potential customer base? Tiing themselves to IE basically limits their customer base to bleeding edge windows systems. That old IE/media player/chat client just won't like that old hardware.
So AOL promised MS to use IE in their next versions (is this only for AOL windows?). How does the future plan of IE not being stand-alone affect this AOL using IE issue? Will MS release a special "IE for AOL" version? Will AOL not include a browser and just use IE APIs straight from Windows? What about non Windows users? Macs?
[alk]
too bad, but not unexpected. Remember, AOL's purpose in life is to make money, not promote alternatives to Microsoft.
Tieing yourself to a browser more than 9 of 10 people don't want to use seems like a good way to cut sales, not increase them.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
50 developers is 10% of the Netscape work force... however, AOL's 'official' position is that they're still supporting the browser & the web portal.
... and Walmart sure is selling a whole lotta Lindows PC these days.
aol official position
AOL is making a *huge* mistake by not using the Gecko engine as the core of their browser/ISP product. Right now they're using Gecko as the core in their Compuserve and Mac AOL product, but still using IE in the Windows product. Seems like they could streamline their internal coding operations by standardizing on one code base, which would ultimately save them more money than letting developers go.
Also, by using the Gecko engine in the product, they could in theory start offering AOL on Linux-based PC's; while that might sound like an unprofitable venture at first, I can't imagine all of those people purchasing Lindows-based PC's at Walmart not wanting AOL as their ISP
Honestly tho, who fucking cares!? I mean, I'm sorry to those that lost their jobs, definitely - this is not directed at them. But as far as the AOL shitbag goes, you had to see this stuff coming from a mile away. They are not even remotely the same AOL that Case or jwz worked for. They are one of the largest media companies in the world!
All these biz guys understand the M$ biz guys. They're all about numbers and not innovation, so the bloodletting is beginning; nothing anyone can do about it.
Now, that said, Mozilla is the key here. I don't think it will die in the forseeable future. Combined with Linux gaining more and more ground, there must exist a free, open browser. Sure, Konqueror will hang around, but Mozilla will still have a larger user base. And companies that depend on that, like Redhat, IBM, Sun (once they ditch Netscape 4), and others, they will put development efforts into it. And if the Moz Foundation gets really strapped for cash, then just move it to SourceForge or Savannah.
Point is is that there is no use thinking or worrying about AOL or Netscape anymore. They've been goners for some time. Mozilla is the focus and given the 'freeness' of the code, it will continue to live on regardless of cut funding and developers. Granted, it might slow, but no worse than IE.
I for one am sorry my fellow coders are out of a job, but I have all the faith in the world for Moz cuz I think it's a great browser. I mean, c'mon, if the C=64 (long live the C=64!) can still live after all these years, why not Moz?
With Netscape circling the drain for so long, it was just a matter of time. Netscape was too far gone to be salvageable anyway. Mozilla has been a much better browser, almost from go, than Netscape ever was, which is a little surprising since they were based on the same code base.
On a related topic, I have fiddled with Mozilla and Opera and compared them, and I think it's safe to say that Opera's claim of being the fastest browser out there is incorrect.
Now that AOL has made a deal with the devil, Netscape's demise went from anticipated to guaranteed. I hate to see Netscape go, as it was a viable alternative at one time and some people out there still prefer it.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
...this is just AOL cutting the Mozilla project loose. Yeah, $2 million contribution to the Mozilla Foundation isn't much, but I expect many other companies to contribute. No worries here. In fact, it seems appropriate that the Mozilla project is disconnected from AOL.
--Drunk as in Beer
With Netscape, they had AIM support built right-in. All MSIE has is a little taskbar button for Messenger (I dunno if they have one for AIM, too). I'm pretty sure it won't be as easy to create a Netscape profile using your AIM login at the same time though.
And what about Real Player? IE integrates pretty well with Media Player. Actually, if Real Player up and died, it would be no big loss, but I wonder how AOL is still gonna push that stuff, if they don't push Netscape anymore that comes with it all.
Well, not like they were really pushing Netscape anyway. They just made it the default browser, and I'm sure the average AOLer didn't notice anyway. Without Netscape though, I imagine that the other two might have a harder time standing on their own.
I just hope WinAmp doesn't get the axe, too.
So Microsoft has more than enough cash on hand to buy out AOL/TW.
If the marketplace were completely free and unfettered, you'd think that Microsoft would, rather than pour money down the hole that has been MSN, simply buy out AOL with its 30 million subscribers.
But Microsoft won't do this because they know they can't; that the DoJ would immediately ask questions about unfair market consolidation were such a buyout offer made.
So instead MSFT pours money into MSN and leverages its dominant products of Windows, Office and Explorer to subsidize MSN.
As AOL dies slowly over a few years, this will be viewed as "OK", the marketplace in action, and no inconvenient questions will be raised except by AOL management and stockholders.
Since MS can rely upon a steady revenue stream from Windows and Office to subsidize its efforts into taking over new markets they enjoy an advantage that AOL and other competitors simply don't have.
People buy Windows and Office like they're a standard, a necessity, that's no more avoidable than paying gasoline taxes.
Yes, Microsoft has the enviable position of just collecting taxes - like a government. And competing against the government is a no-win situation.
It is a foregone conclusion that AOL will lose. They will wither to nothing, or simply to a marginally-sized pet, like Apple, who would have died long ago if Microsoft had decided to not release Office for Mac.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I perused the article and I'm not sure if it's Mozilla or Netscape developers... they are not the same thing, and I'm sure AOL has developers who take Mozilla and massage it into Netscape. If those are the people getting laid off then I don't feel so bad.
Well, I feel bad for them, but I've always hated the changes AOL made to Mozilla before releasing it as Netscape - like when they removed the pop-up feature, and all the crap they include.
I too, though, find it painful explaining Mozilla to people over and over again.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Microsoft doesn't need to provide you with competing browsers. They should not prohibit system builders like Dell or Gateway from doing so, however.
Imagine that many drug companies manufactured a similar allergy medicine. One of them also makes a heart medicine that dominates it's market. Then that drug maker goes to all the pharmacies and says "You can't sell my heart medicine unless you only sell my allergy medicine." The pharmacies know that the heart medicine is vital to many of their clients and that if they don't have that heart medicine, the clients will go elsewhere. They cave. The other drug companies lose access to the market for their allergy medications, and the consumers lose choice.
Microsoft doesn't need to provide support for competing products, but they shouldn't user their position as the dominant desktop OS provider (heart medicine manufacturer) to prevent system builders (pharmacies) from also providing browsers (allergy medicines) from other firms.
AOL has announced that it will use IE for the browser for seven years. Microsoft has announced that there will no longer be a standalone version of IE. So, if AOL is to still work on existing Windows boxes, then it must remain at IE6. But, it's hard to beleive that they won't want to move to the latest and greatest (tongue in cheek) IE when it ships, but that would force AOL to either maintain separate code bases or drop support for current versions of Windows. If they choose the separate code bases, then using the least common denominator approach, AOL won't be able to include future web features, because they don't exist in IE6. Dropping support for older versions of Windows, is a very calculated risk. There are two possible outcomes. Facing a forced upgrade, either AOL's would switch to a different ISP or shell out the bucks for a new version of Windows (and possibly new hardware). My bet would be to switch ISPs, but I'm sure AOL and MS are counting on people buying a new version of Windows, instead. If they are right, that's not a bad investment for MS $750M to get AOL users to all buy a copy of the next version of Windows. At 35 million AOL subscribers and a $100 upgrade cost, MS stands to gross $3.5 billion dollars. Not a bad return on investment.
Does anyone here actually use Netscape as their default browser?
Mozilla; yes of course.
What's not to like?
Regarding to Opera... if you are comparing it to mozilla... Opera is faster, damn faster.
My experience has actually been the opposite. I have to agree, Opera is plenty fast, but every time I have compared the two, Mozilla has left Opera behind. It very well could be a function of my Windows configuration, though, as I have done some odd things to my system. I haven't tried Opera under Linux (since early beta), so I can't compare there, but I have used Mozilla under Linux and have been most pleased.
Regardless, Mozilla and Opera are both faster than Netscape.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Then again, I don't really have an understanding of the mozilla/netscape relationship, just what I heard--mozilla started when netscape opened its code, aol gives mozilla money, aol gets all the cool stuff from mozilla and reinserts it into netscape. If it's more complicated than that and I'm missing something, please feel free to explain it to me.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Welp, I admit it. Looks like I was wrong. An AOL-supported Mozilla is dead.
What does this mean for the OS X AOL client? That's the one thing (Gecko-based OS X client is already out there) that made me think AOL'd keep going. Looks like IE 7 (or whatever) is going to have some really neat stuff. Enough that the MS licensing agreement with AOL makes it a good idea for AOL to kill Gecko as a back-up engine for its software.
Maybe the Safari embeddable engine is easy enough to use that AOL is going that way. Or maybe AOL OS X's engine will just fold up into proprietary software. The MPL allows that.
I don't feel *that* badly. AOL, whether it meant to or not, pulled the plug, strangely enough, immediately after Moz became the best browser on the market. That's good timing from where I'm sitting -- which is in front of a monitor, posting with Mozilla/Firebird.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Hey, even Compaq/HP does not support them anymore!
Looking at Alpha's recent benchmark results, and the fact that its ISA is comprehensible to a human being, I find HP's split between PA-RISC, Alpha, and the almighty Itanium pretty darn confusing.
Perhaps, once an organization spends so much money, the point of no return has been passed regardless where the road ahead leads...
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20030601.html
668: Neighbour of the Beast
No, you completely misunderstood what I was saying.
Point is, the OS, as viewed by the end user, would include a browser. Someone in the supply chain would include one, however no browser would be forced to be on everyone's desks.
Within your (popular) car-analogy framework, we have:
Today's Situation
You buy your car from a Honda dealership, a Toyota dealership, a Ford dealership, or a used car dealership down the street. From whomever you purchase a car, the situation's the same. Because Exxon made the engine, it requires Exxon gas. Helpfully, they've included Exxon gas with your car. You can use other gas, but Exxon recommends their own gas (and requires you use it at least a little, because of how they designed the engine; heck, you've heard a silly rumor that Exxon engines sometimes turn on the engine warning light if they detect the wrong (i.e. non-Exxon) type wheel, carbuerator, distributor cap, etc., especially the once-popular but now rare DR-DOS wheel, and you've wondered once or twice in your daydreams if this couldn't have also led to some of the problems you experienced with your Exxon engine when you've used non-Exxon gas), so 95% of the car drivers out there buy only Exxon gas. Coincidentally, since the market on gas has collapsed (due to Exxon's monopoly position and abuse thereof? But you're Joe User and don't notice or care about such things), most gas stations only sell Exxon gas. They will serve you Exxon gas, and a few will let you tank up with other types of gas, but the vast majority of users drive their Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo, or whatever still using their Exxon engine with the Exxon gas, and blissfully visiting Exxon-only stations.
Oh, yeah. You've vaguely heard somewhere (being Joe User, not the Greenpeace type) that Exxon's not the happy-friendly company they portray themselves to be, but rather reportedly had a bad spill up somewhere in the North, and have been rather rude to Shell and BP recently, the only (minor) competition left to them. You've also heard some rumours (you're still a little more informed than most of the Joe Users out there in some aspects) vague rumblings about problems with Exxon engines and about the number of odd things (insects?) that turn up in the Exxon gas. But, all this didn't make it into the mainstream media, since Exxon also owns a large portion of some major news sites, and since everyone knows and uses Exxon, and they seem such a nice company....
The Proposed Situation:
We still assume that all car manufacturers ship with Exxon engines. However, in this situation, Exxon actually is the happy, friendly company they portray themselves to be. The car dealers or their suppliers are allowed to ship whatever gas they want to in the cars they sell. Exxon might (or might not) require a little Exxon gas now and again, but the other gas is of higher quality and has more features (cleans various things, helps prevent those annoying attackers from effectively using sugar in your gas tank, etc.), so many dealerships and people ship the gas they like to use. Of course, you're free at some dealerships to come with your own gas, or to select from a (sometimes wide!) variety of gas. And the dealerships sometimes also get a kickback from the gas vendors, for giving people a chance to try their gas.
And that's the way I see it.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Hmm, if I recall correctly, I had two children in the time it took Opera to release their Mac browser... If I do not recall correctly, it is due to lack of sleep or under/over caffeination.
must... stay... awake...
I suspect the real reason is money and an understanding of what their real business and goals are. AOL isn't in the software business, it is in the content business. It costs a bunch of money to develop and support a browser. The articles I read said that they had 50 people working on NS. That is a cost of that is probably over $7.5 million a year.
AOL realizes that they compete with MS as an ISP and content provider. They have given up the idea that they are going to be a desktop platform and compete with MS. It never made sense in the first place. The competition is about content and service. AOL wants to leverage MS's development expense, not duplicate it.
MS supports the standards, does a good job rendering and, as was pointed out, handles poorly coded pages much better than NS. 97% of users are using IE. The world has changed. AOL has changed. AOL has realized it and moved on to do what it needs to to be a successful business. They don't need to be in the browser business to succeed. They don't need to fight a religious war with MS about browsers and desktops to succeed.
This may disappoint many who are looking for a champion to fight what they perceive as MS's hegemony. If that is what you want, look to Sun or IBM, it isn't AOL any more. In reality, it never was, because AOL really never threw the effort needed to compete and to win (if that was even possible) into Netscape.