[KLUG Members] Is this the end of Netscape?

[Adam Williams]

> >>They have always used IE.  The murmured once about switching to
> >>Netscape/Mozilla, etc... but it became clear pretty quickly that they
> >>were only doing it to rattle Bill's chain.
> >Hm. my dad has a fiancee' with AOL, and so he installed it on his
> >machine for her. It used Mozilla (I didn't have a chance to inspect it).
> How did you know this, then? The IE'ness of AOL is gnerally pretty well 
> disguised.

We have a couple of sales people who are addicted to AOL, there
installation (AOL 6?) uses IE.

> >> How would it?  AOL users are a bunch of ignorant troglodytic
> >> sycophants, and there is fewer of them every day; I say let them use
> >> Arena!
> I'm sure pleased to see that we don't stereotype folks around here :)

Never!

> Has Arena improved any? Last time I tried it, I got very reliable 
> behavior... it crashed ALL the time! :)

It is even more reliable. Last I read it won't even compile on current
versions of glibc/XFree86 without some rather serious hacking (and who
would bother).

> I can't actually recall exiting Arena normally.

Mmmm... you're proably right.  Pretty much the same is true for
red-baron if anyone remembers that one.

> >I've heard that MSN just isn't taking off. 
> Any source[s] for this?

The spokesperson from TM/AOL who was on NPR yesterday.  They explained
that they bought Netscape in order to have leverage against M$ after M$
started MSN.  But as a serious competitor, MSN just didn't materialize. 
So thier interest in having an avenue to alternative technologies is
gone.

> >MS may have decided to exit
> >the media business, in which case this agreement is in fact a peace
> >treaty between AOL and MS.
> There's no evidence of M$ exiting the media business just yet, and it 

True,  they do seem to be at least re-organizing their approach to media
(but who isn't these days).

> is clear that they view media platforms and software as a strategic

True.