[thelist] AOL wants to buy RH Linux??

martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
Mon Jan 21 04:02:22 CST 2002


Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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I think this is more of a useful threat to extract concessions from
MS than a serious intention:
"Oooh, Bill, you'd better be nice to us and keep giving us default
Desktop space... or we'll 'upgrade' all our users to Linux. Hell,
they'd never notice anyway"

It's a negotiating tool. And when Bill caves, they can either:
1) kill off RedHat as part of the deal
2) keep it in reserve as a future negotiating tool.
3) both

Cheers
Martin


To:   thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject:  RE: [thelist] AOL wants to buy RH Linux??

  "The AOL online software, which consumers can
   install for free from the Web or a compact disk,
   is now designed to run on Microsoft's Windows
   operating system. But the AOL software could be
   configured to override Windows and launch a
   version of Red Hat's Linux operating system,
   sources said."

  "With such a move, AOL Time Warner could
   potentially make significant inroads into
   Microsoft's bread-and-butter business. An
   even graver challenge to Microsoft would be
   for AOL Time Warner to develop a rival
   operating system that works exclusively with
   the media giant's own Internet service
   provider, its Web browser or proprietary
   content."

if this happens, you damn well better bet that microsoft will consider
linux
an important operating system to support for their browser, office apps,
etc.  in the meantime, wanna talk about a browser market with little to no
competition where the owner/distributor of the os also owns the browser?



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