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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.
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"
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.
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.
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?
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.