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

[Erick Andrews]

On Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:38:25 -0500, Paul Rickard wrote:

>========== On 2002.01.20 05:53 PM, Mitch Stone typed: ============
>
>>Another possible (and more encouraging) speculative scenario: AOL pumps 
>>money into Red Hat, helps them develop a strong "brand" and uses that to 
>>leverage the big box makers into selling retail Linux boxes. Far-fetched, 
>>perhaps, but something to consider. All this assumes Steve Case really 
>>wants to go mano-a-mano with Bill Gates.
>
>     The RedHat buyout wuould be with stock; paper money that has a small 
>impact on the bottom line of the company that gives it out. Spending REAL 
>money on RedHat would get quite expensive, and it's no secret that AOLTW 
>is cutting its budgets all around, from marketing to film production. 
>They're so cheap they put all their DVDs in a sorry cardboard case 
>instead of something solid like all the other companies do. And even if 
>it did buy RedHat and spend ungodly amounts of money on it, AOL has 
>nothing to offer the box assemblers for incentive except money, and the 
>way budgets have been tightened there probably isn't enough of that 
>around to convince any of them to risk the wrath of Microsoft. Microsoft 
>can allow or disallow the sale of Windows, that means more than just a 
>cash bonus, it means the survival of companies. Microsoft has every 
>mainstream OEM by the throat, and it has for a better than 15 years. AOL 
>cannot change that with or without RedHat.
>     Case doesn't have the testicles to go face to face with Microsoft 
>anyway, at least not the way his now-underlings at Netscape once did. The 
>way Novell did before it had its tail clipped. The way Borland used to, 
>before Microsoft beat it lifeless. Digital Research. IBM, for crap sake. 
>And they had a lot better stuff than AOL does, even including WinAmp, 
>Netscape, all the online properties, and the AOL service itself. AOL 
>doesn't have a compelling enough product (RedHat irregardless) to win in 
>a straight war with Microsoft, they just have enough customers to do OK 
>while skirting around the edges of Ms' product lineup. Online services, 
>Web sites, and instant messengers are one thing, operating systems are 
>another enirely. So far, Microsoft has been fairly tolerant of AOL and 
>treated it like little more than an annoyance. A love-hate relationship, 
>the appearance of civility. Occasional attacks, but nothing with the full 
>force of MICROSOFT (all-caps now) behind it. If AOL had an advancing OS 
>on the market, Gates, Ballmer, Allchin, and Belluzzo wouldn't rest until 
>there was nothing left of AOLTimeWarner except a smoking hole in the 
>earth. You know what Ms was capable of in the past, and the company has a 
>better position now than it has at any previous time in history.
>     Bottom line: if AOL buys RedHat, they won't spend any money to 
>develop it. If they by some chance do spend money on it, the amount will 
>have to be massive and still likely futile. And if they somehow do all 
>that and make any progress on Microsoft with RedHat, Microsoft will 
>flatten the entire corporation and all its subsidiaries like a 
>steamroller over a jelly donut. It still MAKES NO SENSE unless AOL does 
>this to HELP Microsoft instead of hurt it. _NO SENSE WHATSOEVER._
>

Good rant, Paul.  I kinda like it.

So the bottom line is 'thick as thieves', what?

-- 
Erick Andrews