[Am-info] AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat

[Paul Rickard]

========== On 2002.01.20 03:59 PM, madodel@ptdprolog.net typed: 
============

>In the case of OS/2, m$ couldn't force IBM to kill it, but they could
>wield their  handcuff licensing to prevent IBM from preloading their own
>operating system, which IBM still supports to this day, on their own
>hardware.   IBM was so intent on pleasing m$, that they supposedly lost at
>least one big sale in Brazil because IBM refused to preload OS/2 on any
>workstations or servers, while Compaq (or maybe it was Dell) was more then
>willing to bend the rules to sell several thousand machines.

     IBM is a hundred different companies that all have the same name. 
Little to no cynergy overall. IBM's OS divisions have nothing to do with 
the hardware divisions. Microsoft forcing the PC unit of IBm to abandon 
OS/2 would be no different than forcing Dell or Compaq to, if those 
assemblers had ever used it.

>So if AOL buys Red Hat, will that force m$ to be more receptive to AOL?  
>Does AOL even have software that will run on Linux?  

     They apparently have it (see the Gateway appliance message) but it 
isn't available to the general public, far as I know. But more receptive 
over Linux than over the ISP? Doubtful. What is AOL going to do, drop 
Windows support in favor of Linux? That's handing the market to MSN. I 
see no way for AOL to leverage RedHat against Microsoft more than RedHat 
itself already leverages its products against them.



======== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign =======
--------------------------------[ Http://www.msboycott.com ]-----------

  "As Internet technology itself vaults into new areas, so too does the
   Microsoft monopoly and its tried-and-true bag of tricks."
       -US Senator Orrin Hatch, (R) Utah