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The AOL-Netscape-Sun Triune want to slay Microsoft
paRcat wrote to us with the lastest
news from MS Trial. It appears, from court documents, that AOL-Sun-Netscpe (Or, Apollo, Zeus and Odyssey as they referred to themselves) have laid a plan to make Microsoft irrelevant. Reading through much of it is common-sense, but it's interesting to see the plans laid out, including the tidbit that IE4-AOL is "the last" one.
The three are betting heavily on the notion that everything runs off of the Internet-and they mean everything, pairing that with Java from Sun, and Netscape in applications, they want to dominate everything.
It's going to be tough for them to pull off. "AOL Everywhere"? The slogan has got to be bolder than the reality of it. It probably translates more into, "AOL available on every reasonable platform and pipe." I guess I can't argue with that.
Sun's vision of fat servers and dumb clients? Maybe. There are certainly a few issues which are going to work against that -- privacy, and games. I might want to type, send, and store my email on a remote server, but I'm going to be a whole lot less trusting to put personal finances and information on an online "excel/word" application to be stored and managed for me.
Even WORSE, it leads to "metered computing", which nobody wants. Quake type games become impossible to run, and you've got vendor lock-in with their decision of what application you run. (Well, kind of like Microsoft, huh?)
Sun has done a great job of defending its turf ever since Microsoft jumped it on the workstation space, and made a feeble attempt at the datacenter. I'm rooting for Sun here. As far as AOL? If it floats someone's boat, good for them. Just don't ram it down my throat like MSN.
Well, the author has made an interesting point, which I hate to say that I've fallen into. The point is that the battle against Microsoft is going to change the landscape in ways I may not like, win or lose. Linux is looking better even more these days. I need to install it.
There is nothing illegal about having a monopoly, this is anti-trust, which is when you have monopoly or near monopoly, you leverage that to keep your monopoly.
An example, Standard Oil in the 19th century. They had a near monopoly in the Oil business. If a competitor would appear, then Standard would undercut the competitor's prices until the competitor could not afford to stay in the business.
This is similar to what MS did with IE, give it away for free to kill Netscape.
It's the anti-competative behavior that is illegal.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
from Microsoft how? I am far from a fan of MS by any stretch but quite honestly how does this make this trinity different from the way Microsoft is now? Other than the fact that its 3 companies united via partnership. I'm far from a lawyer as well so does this still constitute the same business practices that MS is in trouble for right now?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
I say that the AOL symbol should be the main part of the
"evil three" logo, because, like you said, it almost fits the bill
already. Also, Netscape is really just a part of aol now. And,
of course, AOL is by far the most evil and MS-like of the three
companies.
Start with the AOL logo, and color it black, with evil looking fire
peeking around the edges. Inside, blend in a picture of a sinister
mozilla, warped and twisted from it's previously good, pure
form. In the monster's eye, or perhaps partly hidden behind
the head, put a deep red, sinister looking sun.
I think a logo like that would be really cool, funny, and make
a statement at the same time. Anyone out there really good
with the Gimp? I'm not, but I'll try my best.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Well I don't know if this eases your conspiricy theories at all, but I just search www.msnbc.com for both "GE" and "General Electric" and got "No MSNBC articles found". "Microsoft" of course provides a gazillion hits.
(GE owns NBC.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The problem with the "AOL PC" is where are the
other applications, ie. Office applications???
What else could you do with an AOL PC other
than surf and send email?? Not much else --
no games, no office apps, no servers, just
surfing. You may as well buy a WebTV. If you
think you can build Java apps to play Quake
and write heavily formatted spread sheets, well
it's not going to happen any time soon -- Java
can't handle heavy applications.
Microsoft's dominance rests on at least three
hinges: Windows, Microsoft Office, and Internet
Explorer. OK, so you figure you can replace
Windows and Internet Explorer but you're
forgeting the Big One: Microsoft Office, and
I don't recall Sun or Netscape having any office
application ready to roll.
As long as the business world is hopelessly
addicted to MS Office, Windows will be there
too. The only real threat to that market is
Linux w/ Star Office or Applix or some other
office suite in Linux.
I'm betting on microsoft.mil myself..
Microsoft: We make the things that make communications break.
I find it interesting how few people seem to be noticing that this "news" piece appears on the web news service owned by Microsoft!
(Obviously, the AC to whom I am responding DID notice it.)
Anyway, the article was a totally transparent: "Don't be afraid of poor abused little ol' innocent Microsoft, be afraid of this horrible three-headed monster we are depicting!"
Sheesh!
Sun, AOL, and Netscape have to band together like this just to keep their head above water against the "We WILL be the ONLY writer of any kind of software on planet earth" monster from Redmond. World dominance will not be the result of the Sun, AOL, Netscape alliance. Mere survival may be.
A blatant FUD piece to attempt to draw attention away from the REAL ISSUE!
I, for one, am not buying.
Easy there, Oliver Stone. The black helicopters will be here soon enough...
serf, huh?
I don't know how familiar you are with the news business in general. First of all if you think ANY news is not under some corporate control, you aren't paranoid enough!
All news organizations (or at least the good ones)are in a constant stuggle to protect the editorial side (that is news, etc.) from the publishing/advertising side.
In every newspaper in america, you will find ad executives furious about how some upstart reporter daned to go and write an exposee that pissed off their client, and now they have to sweet talk that client or lose a huge customer that's a giant source of revenue, and don't these reporters understand that they shouldn't piss these people off?
But we do understand. All too well. And we are intentionally shielded from those ad people. Most news organization have strict firewalls to prevent reporters and editors from worrying about ads and revenue.
So no. Microsoft does not have hiring and firing power over me. No Microsoft representative has ANY input in my evaluations. And I believe firmly that if Bill Gates himself called Merrill Brown (the editor in chief of MSNBC) and told him to fire me, Merrill would say, "Bill, go take a flying fuck in a rolling donught."
You think us reporter-serfs who live, eat, breath, and deficate scrutiny and public disclosure really wouldn't notice influence if it were there?
How come you're not so worried about GE's influence? We are FAR more tied to NBC and CNBC from a content standpoint then we are to MS.
MS paid for half of MSNBC. True. They have revenue goals they want met. They want us to use their technology. But they have NEVER repeat NEVER altered our content and news judgement. I am very impressed with the quality of my editors (and I don't say that lightly as I have authority problems and my respect is not easily earned).
This is not to say that the scenario you painted has never happened at any news organization in America. Take Disney's influence in making ABC pull a story on the lack of safety at Disney's theme parks...
But what happens? The rest of the media chews them a new asshole. As I hope they would to MSNBC if a similar scenario ever were to happen.
I know I would be the first whistleblower. It's not like we make much money as reporters anyway... we basically have nothing to lose but our reputations and love of the truth.
Microsoft will win out in the end for one, good reason: They control time itself. Yes! its true. Whenever you copy files, etc., time slows down. First it reports that copying the file will take 15 minutes, then within 5 seconds, it is halved, again and again. By the end, the last 5 seconds takes two minutes or more!
How can anyone compete against a copany that controls time?
BitPoet
Well, perhaps I'm biased myself, not liking Microsoft's positions and attitudes, but I find it strange that an MSNBC article is the only one favoring Microsoft on Colburn's testimony and AOL's plans. Everyone else was reporting that the judge was openly skeptical of what point MS was trying to make with this issue, and generally not making it sound like MS scored any points.
Eg.: Colburn's memo about dropping IE, which MS tried to make much of. They weren't happy to have Case's response to that memo brought in as well, in which Case basically said that dropping IE wasn't feasible due to repercussions from MS if they did that.
Nothing I saw in the exposed plans looks illegal. The problem with MS isn't that they have a monopoly, it's that they use it "to stifle innovation". When WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were the undisputed winners in their niche, DOJ (and users) didn't care, because they weren't trying to take over desktop printers, banking, and worldwide media. It's OK to corner a market based on better product. It's not OK to corner a market by leveraging a monopoly in another market, regardless of whether your product is of competitive quality.
Besides, how much power would AOL have if they "won"? They would be providing a service based on Open Standards, through third-party telco's, with little proprietary content. What would be the barrier to entry for a better product, with the V.C. available these to support advertising?
No, I find it quite natural that a MS associated news source tries to create the illusion of a credible threat towards Microsoft, in order to help them in the court.
Where is the irony in that?
If you are referring to the picture at the top of the article, you might notice that the three people at the bottom (with swords?) have the symbols of the Trio on their backs. That would make MS the 3-headed monster. I made the same mistake on immediate examination.
However, the fact that they were making plans, and had ideas on how to implement them, gives weight to the idea that the market isn't as closed as they would have us believe. That article makes me think that all these companies really want is to replace MS, not make the environment better for users.
In the end, that is (should be) the goal of anti-trust legislation: guarantee competition. If MS acted to prevent these companies from replacing their OS as dominant, that's one thing. If, on the other hand, these companies were just too wary of the development and advertising costs associated with entering the fray, why are we spending money on them? I don't remember seeing AOL or Sun or Netscape releasing an OS, MS drastically cutting the price of Winblows, and raising it back after the other died.
Basically, this trial is about the other companies being upset that MS is better at pulling the wool over the consumers' eyes than thay are. I think Netscape is a greatly superior browser (my employers, unfortunately, don't), but MS has greatly superior advertising (in that it exists), and the great majority of our fellow countrypeople are more swayed by advertising than quality.
ohhhh.... bad post.... long.....
we would have been hearing how cars provided competition for Standard Oil because these could also run on oil provided by other vendors (even though none had relevant market share or production capacity at the time, so no choice was available to buyers).
Furthermore, we would have heard that the alleged monopoly on oil could fall apart at any moment, as a multitude of people were digging in the earth with the purpose of striking oil.
And lastly, they would have told that oil was about to be overtaken by nuclear and solar energy (and one shouldn't bother about questioning whether these can provide energy for cars) so, despite Standard Oil's market share, the company wouldn't have market power at the moment of investigation.
-cjr
Nice URL-- looks like it's reflected through a hotmail machine... (209.185.130.250) ?
Correct URL is http://www.msnbc.com/news/280218.asp
Well, Rob, you'll need a new icon for the new Holy Trinity here. Who knows, in five years maybe they'll be the new MSFT. The market seems to need a 500-pound gorilla, and once Redmond is out of the picture someone else will take its place. Sounds like these folks want to be that.
This year, they're the good guys. Next year maybe they'll be the bad guys. Ah well, if we didn't want excitement and constant change, we wouldn't be working in technology, eh?
I know certain aspects of my sentiments have been said, but I must say them...
:), but while this may not accurately reflect how ancient emperors really were, I hope my point about MS still comes across. They aren't here to deliver crappy products, it just happens in the midst of not caring if they deliver good products over their market share. Now, our favorite Tripant is different. MS is a bit sick, a bit misguided, and unfortunatly it's never been brought to a sanitarium. AOL is pure evil. Netscape has been (essentially) what MS would perhaps be if it were the underdog, aside from certain marketing aspects (and intelligence with perspective). Sun, as a company, is irrelevant to me, so I won't comment on them. But under the oppression of an empire (figuratively speaking), we'll find two types of people. One usually succeeds, one doesn't.
Microsoft is like some ancient emperor. MS wants to get control of all the 'kingdoms' in the area. It doesn't want to make their citizens (both old an new) live in horrible conditions, but it also isn't the goal to make them live in eden-like spleandor. This means that the citizens (for the most part; not a universal rule) can still live their day-to-day lives even if everything about the empire they live in is trash. While most surely any sane person would want to leave, it's akin to wanting to walk out on a bad movie instead of escape chinese water torture.
I'm really not a history person (despite taking it
Type A: Martin Luther King's. The Ghandis. These people don't often succeed, but when they do, they do so while being completely 100% in the right (subjectively) and changing the world for the better. This would be Linux, for the most part. Passive-Resistance. Peace, man.
Type B: The Angry Mob. In the empire analogy, these guys would consist mostly of the nobles who probably still have it pretty good. What do they do? They find the nearest town that's a main part of the empire (as in, a town of the empire before it decided taking over their neighbor's lands was fun for the whole family) and they torch the houses of all the citizens. Althought they feel better, the rest of the citizens of the empire suddenly get the mistaken impression that the empire is good because of the terrorists they now have to compare to. Instead of creating a new empire of 'nobles', they end up getting caught and in jail. Nothing is accomplished, except perhaps a bit of thankfulness on the citizens part that the empire has locked a few cruel people in the dungeons, and a perspective that it could be worse... they could be under the hands of those freaks.
(B) the raised price was for a newer version of Windows that IBM hadn't contributed dev effort to.
(A)What newer version of Windows hasn't included all the older crap (that IBM apparently helped to create)?
(B) Why justification does Microsoft have for charging IBM 2-3 times as much for Windows as other OEMs just because a new version with some extra "features" was released?
(C) How do you explain the threats by Joachim Kempin that if IBM didn't stop marketing and/or offering OS/2, they would have to pay alot more for Windows.
(D) How do you explain the deal that Kempin tried to arrange that involved having IBM stop shipping SmartSuite for six months to a year in order to receive a discount on Windows (which would have still had IBM paying more than any other major OEM).
If the press reports seemed to be slanted against Microsoft, it's because Microsoft earned it. They were trying to use their prices to prevent IBM from competing. That's illegal if you have a monopoly, which seems to be pretty well established in court now. I believe there was even an email from a Microsoft exec to an IBM exec that stated that IBM can have Compaq's deal when IBM stops competing. Just another one of those damning emails that show exactly what Microsoft's intentions were.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Hey all -- I'm the drone who wrote this story for MSNBC. I've really enjoyed the comments here -- you guys have some great insights. I especially liked the post about Ceaser and his slayers... very clever. Of course, no one noticed that the companies got it all wrong: Sun should have been Apollo, not AOL... guess Steve Case never read Bulfinch's
Anyway, for the record, when I first took the job at MSNBC, I shared all the concerns voiced here about the relationship between the news organization and Microsoft. I mean, I had just been covering the MS trial for the Mercury News, so it wasn't like I was ignorant about how MS goes about its business.
But I was very pleased to discover that MS has NEVER tried to influence the editorial content of the site. I know its hard to believe. But I know I personally never would have taken the job if I thought otherwise. Now, three months later, I am pleased to say my editors are tickled pink when I (or my colleagues) are tough on MS, and have never told me to slant my news in ANY way, let alone pro-MS.
Anyway, this story was really interesting to dig into. AOL/Sun/Netscape really look like they are trying to out-Microsoft Microsoft, in that they want to establish and control the standards, which has always been MS' game.
You expect that of AOL, but what puzzles me more than anything else is Sun's involvement. They have been pretty big open-standard proponents in the past and I'm a little surprised to see them in this role. Thoughts anyone?
Anyway, thanks for all the insight!
-Elliot
Ok, if I read this correctly (and I admit I ran through it only once) then there are a few things that I think could hinder this plan.
:-)
1. This seems unfeasible(sp?) until there is inexpensive and common high/ultrahigh-bandwidth connections to peoples homes. Perhaps AOL wants to buy Qwest?
2. Is a JVM system really fast enough now to work as a real OS or even application on its own?
3. Somehow it seems to me that using the net as a giant application server is a very good way to both reduce security both on the server end (cracker modifies the Java code? BOOM) and in the data stream (we would want uber-encryption on this data, and it is still decoded on the server side, returning to my previous point).
4. Who would run the massively high-speed computers to do all this processing? I would think that serving apps for x number of net users, combined with whatever encryption is needed on the data would slow most computers (I mean even SMP servers and clusters) to a crawl. And if you limit the number of connections to each server, what happens if there is a surge in users and the servers are overloaded? Can you say lawsuit?
5. The 'net, even though it is designed to be redundant, occasionally loses connection with parts of itself. How would this be handled? For those on modem access, what if you are suddenly disconnected after typing 9 pages of a term paper? Are there accounts on these servers in which your abandoned document is saved, or does it just expire as soon as the connection times out?
Tom Byrum
As the article mentions (about 3/4 the way down... gee, is this a biased article?), the AOL-Sun Internet Anywhere concept isn't a direct threat on Microsoft's operating system monopoly. So you can use your Java-based cell phone to check your AOL email by sometime next year -- is that going to replace the Windoze box you have on your desk at work? Nope. Not by a long shot.
The focus of the anti-trust trial (which gets very little fanfare in this article) is whether Microsoft currently has a monopoly over operating systems, and whether they use that monopoly maliciously. Frankly, this is just smoke up the public's ass, trying to cloud the issue.
-- Mid
In a word, nothing. (BTW, read the _whole_ article. It becomes easier to not hear B. Gates' voice reading it as you go along.)
It is a truely desperate effort on Microsoft's part to use this kind of material as a defense. It could backfire on them. These three companies are only going through with these deals because of Microsoft's dominance. And in the end, their plans could amount to nothing more than pipe dreams.
Most of the quoted documents were apparently written by Sun. I am a Java advocate, but I'll be the first to tell you that Sun inappropriately likes to see their plight on a mythic scale. I equate some of their comments to those chain-letter type of e-mails that run around the internet comparing MS to a dragon, or a car, or a giant spider, etc.. When I was an OS/2 user (duck) I used to see these types of e-mails all the time. And we OS/2 users always held onto the belief that some day our OS would beat the evil MS. We knew it wasn't true, but that's what faith is all about.
Alot of the triad's plans sound similarly dream-like. I do think that Java will become more wide-spread but you have to have a pretty faithful imagination to think it will dominate the desktop. (Nothing would please me more but I still have a few OS/2 pains where those muscles are.) There other plans are just that. Plans. Add 50 cents and you might be able to buy a cup of coffee. Only time will tell how much they succeed.
Fortunately, the Judge in the trial seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. He seems to be able to recognize smoke and mirrors when he sees it. Still, only time will tell if they succeed.
However, if MS does make it through this trial completely unscathed then I don't think the triads plans amount to anything.
MS's "downfall" would have to come from another direction. And I won't hold my breath.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Netscape the browser might be alive and well, but Netscape the company ain't makin a dime off it right now... Guess who made it that way?
None of those other OSes can really compete with Microsoft. MacOS is the closest thing to a competitor, but they can't do anything to cheese off MS or they lose Office and whatever else MS decides to do to them. BeOS is still too new and has no application support, and the OEMs are afraid that Microsoft will jack their prices for Windows through the roof if they offer it on desktop machines. Linux is making headway in the server arena, but that's not where Microsoft's monopoly power lies. When Microsoft has all the OEMs by the short and curlies, along with its main OS competitors (IBM and Apple), what can they do? It's blatantly obvious that Microsoft holds alot of power over these companies. Haven't you paid attention to what they did to IBM with the Windows pricing and development info? Jeez... wake up.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I find it interesting that this article went into such exceptional detail about the business plans of these 3 companies. (At least the article mentions that Microsoft is the MS in MSNBC).
:-)
Hasn't MS been able to have such excruciating details excluded from public view, in order to protect their business plans?
I don't recall such intimate details of similar MS docs being published. Just excerpts of email, high level plans, etc. Perhaps this a decision by the particular publishers?
I do think the article tried to deliver a resouding "look at all this competition MS has" to the readers. As if some javabox running AOL is gonna run MS out of business. We all know it's actually gonna be linux
The only character missing from this insidious consipracy is ex-borlander and wannabe MS killer, P. Kahn. that would make Bill tremble, eh?