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AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat | |
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| Time: 04:10 EST/09:10 GMT | News Source: Washington Post | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
AOL Time Warner Inc. is in talks to buy Red Hat Inc., a prominent distributor of a computer operating system, an acquisition that would position the media giant to challenge arch rival Microsoft Corp., according to sources familiar with the matter. Red Hat, a publicly traded firm based in Durham, N.C., sells products and services based on the Linux operating system, the freely available software developed collaboratively by volunteers. Linux is designed for a wide variety of gear, running corporate computer servers and consumer devices such as personal computers, cell phones and video games. | ||
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| #1 By 3465 (24.15.187.111) at 1/19/2002 10:46:53 AM |
| Hmmmm, the best ISP with the worst OS!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| #2 By 3465 (24.15.187.111) at 1/19/2002 11:46:01 AM |
| Well, being in the computer business for quite some time, I've always enjoyed AOL. #9, too p**sy to post a name? |
| #3 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 1/19/2002 1:31:49 PM |
|
It's weird how successful AOL has been considering the stupidity of the company.
#9 - Linux isn't a real-time OS. |
| #4 By 10 (24.17.9.97) at 1/19/2002 2:21:19 PM |
| don't get me wrong, I completely loathe AOL and it's piece 'o shite online service...but the smarter idea would've been to buy the BEOS from Palm, a much better multimedia OS which is the direction AOL needs to go, not Linux..lol....most AOL users can't even figure out how to friggan get around a computer, let alone the know how that's needed to run Linux....this should be an interesting year indeed :) |
| #5 By 2332 (129.21.145.80) at 1/19/2002 3:33:56 PM |
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#6 - How ironic. The phrase "two big monopolies battling it out" should have set off some kind of flag.
How can you have TWO monopolies battling each other? If two companies compete in the same arena, how can they be monopolies? Mono = ONE. Hmmm.... :-) |
| #6 By 61 (65.32.169.133) at 1/19/2002 6:02:28 PM |
| #25, because they are monopolies in different arenas, and battling it out in arenas where they are not monopolies.... however, it's all slowly melding into one big battle. |
| #7 By 3465 (24.15.187.111) at 1/19/2002 7:02:05 PM |
| Actually I'm a MCSE and have many clients who use AOL. |
| #8 By 3465 (24.15.187.111) at 1/19/2002 10:17:25 PM |
| #37 comment made by a AOL tech or disgruntled employee. |
| #9 By 3653 (68.53.87.5) at 1/19/2002 10:23:38 PM |
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Bring it on! You know Bill and company aren't scared of this would-be mess of a company. AOL TimeWarner are already hurting from their marriage (you don't believe me? look at their latest financials). Buying RedHat would ruin what is a pretty decent company (Redhat). That purchase would fly in the face of open-source ideals.
And you know Microsoft might just want this deal to happen. It would be PERFECT as proof that they do not and can not maintain a monopoly. How many times have we seen a "Microsoft killer" born? We hear the media talk up one company after another... and Microsoft destoys each one by kicking their ass in the marketplace. Go Billy Go! |
| #10 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 1/20/2002 1:07:44 AM |
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Has everybody forgotten Lindows already?
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| #11 By 2332 (129.21.145.80) at 1/20/2002 5:27:32 AM |
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#31 - Don't you see; that doesn't make sense!
A company is a monopoly in an arena only if it has no viable competitors. If AOL+Redhat enter, they are a viable competitor in the OS arena! The second AOL+Redhat starts competing, Microsoft ceases to be a monopoly. Hence the reason the statement "two monopolies competing" is funny. :-) |
| #12 By 182 (208.224.173.2) at 1/20/2002 10:54:19 AM |
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"The phrase "two big monopolies battling it out" should have set off some kind of flag.
How can you have TWO monopolies battling each other? If two companies compete in the same arena, how can they be monopolies? Mono = ONE." It is apparent, RMD, that you don't know much about economics. First of all, AOL/Time Warner and Microsoft compete in a wide variety of markets, and have varying degrees of power (what some call "monopoly power") in those markets. A substantial, but, to some, not compelling, case can be made that Microsoft is a monopoly in the consumer and business desktop OS market, and a rather flimsy case could be made that AOL is a monopoly in the consumer dial-up ISP market. So they could both be monopolies, just not in the same market. It is theoretically possible, also, to have relative monopolies in the same market, but of different types. On company can be a (relative) horizontal monopoly, and another company can be a true vertical monopoly. But like I said, you don't know much about economics, do you? That's not surprising; very few of the people who comment on Linux and Windows do. Habonda39's comment number 21 was a rare exception. |
| #13 By 182 (208.224.173.2) at 1/20/2002 11:09:21 AM |
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We tech-elites are very fond of taking potshots at AOL, and sometimes Microsoft, for their technical inferiority, as we perceive it, to other products that we prefer. Who didn't think OS/2 was a superior OS to Windows? When you take out backward compatibility and application software, who doesn't think Linux is a viable competitor to Windows?
However, when you analyze these situations from a business point of view, (and hey, this is America, it's all about making money) both companies know how to implement an effective business plan and delivery popular and effective products to consumers quickly, and to market them effectively. The upshot? They know how to make money, and they know how to do it with a large number of products. They've done it consistently for many years, and the same people who did it with multiple products 8-10 years ago are still there with brilliant marketing and product development ideas now. (I know the nitpickers will take this opportunity to point out all of the failures of AOL and Microsoft. Every company with that many products has failures. But overall, they've had amazing success, and that is why, in a competitive market, they have risen to the top.) I see this as a potentially seriously positive thing for the marketplace. Think about it; Microsoft's OS monopoly is nearly invulnerable from traditional competition. Unless it runs my current apps, there's not much any other OS can offer me that would encourage me to switch. However, AOL has become a killer application in itself. People will buy computers for the sole reason of using AOL, and if they can buy a PC bundled with Linux and AOL preloaded and integrated together, for $100-$300 less than a comparable Windows PC, that could be a compelling market factor. In addition, AOL has the resources to give Linux the kind of overhaul that would be neccesary to tightly integrate AOL and application software, allowing it to become a VERY easy to use and install system, something it lacks now. And it has the UI experience and expertise to make it accessible to the "grandma" user, which is the only largely unsaturated market still available for PC's and ISP's. This could bring competition to the market, which, we all agree, is a very good thing. On the other hand, this could be the death of the most viable, yet far behind, challenger to Windows. If Red Hat Linux somehow becomes "dumbed down Linux" due to AOL's influence, or just becomes "AOL OS", only usable for AOL and by newbie users, this could be a very bad thing. However, I find this extraordinarily unlikely, given AOL's past track record of successfully buying and developing effective and popular consumer applications. |
| #14 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 1/20/2002 1:34:22 PM |
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#51 - As far as AOL/Linux. What you are talking about are internet appliances. There just isn't much of a market there. The problem is that grandma may really like email and such, but then uncle joey comes over to show her how she can take snapshots of the family with a digital camera and share them with the family ... and joey is getting a lecture on not swearing because he can't get the bloody thing to work.
One should never assume they know what consumers want. They should go out and ask them, and then build a product to meet those needs. That's how Microsoft has succeeded... It's something the Unix mentality doesn't allow for. |
| #15 By 2332 (129.21.145.80) at 1/20/2002 3:14:54 PM |
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#50 - Actually, I know quite a bit about economics, and my point still stands.
Whether a company is a horizontal or vertical monopoly doesn't affect several preconditions in order for that company to be a monopoly. These preconditions are: 1.) Since the monopolist is the only firm in the market, the monopolists demand curve and the industry demand curve are identical. 2.) Since the monopolist is the only firm in the market, the monopolist produces a homogenous product. 3.) The market contains some type of a barrier to entry, which keeps other firms out of the industry. 4.) The monopolist has the ability to set its own price, or to be a price-maker. Demand and Marginal Revenue as faced by the Monopolist. If AOL+Redhat enter the OS marketplace, all 4 of those preconditions would not be met, and therefore Microsoft would no longer be a monopoly. Simply because a company is a monopoly in one arena does not give it that same monopoly power in another arena. Microsoft is a monopoly in OS's, but not in toothbrushes. If Microsoft entered the toothbrush market, they would not be monopoly there. Similarly, AOL+Redhat would certainly not be considered an OS monopoly, but as soon as they entered the OS arena by competing with Microsoft, Microsoft would no longer be a Monopoly. So neither company, in this case, would be considered a monopoly while they were competing in the OS arena, hence the reason I found the statement funny. It's a logical impossibility. |
| #16 By 2332 (129.21.145.80) at 1/20/2002 3:20:04 PM |
|
I should note those preconditions are simply technicalities, and don't really reflect what most people consider a monopoly.
For instance, Apple has long been in competition with Microsoft and has held around 5% market share. Does that make Microsoft's monopoly a fallacy? Not really. I was pointing out technicalities because, in some part, that was what was used to attack my remark previously. |
| #17 By 4209 (64.78.119.5) at 1/20/2002 4:35:12 PM |
| #34 please don't make the rest of us MCSE/MCT's sound bad because you recommend AOL to Clients. I recommend a real internet service and ISP to clients, but then again maybe my clients are bigger. And I could care less what AOL does, because the company I work for has a meger %4 ownership of AOL, so if they do good, then more money for me. |
| #18 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 1/20/2002 6:43:11 PM |
|
RMD(#55) - Actually in the DOJ court case against Microsoft, the Judge specifically outlined why Microsoft was a monopoly by discounting the existence of Apple, Linux and so on.
It boiled down to "Microsoft is a monopoly because they are the only ones who makes the Windows operating systems for computers running Intel processors." By his definition, it does mean that Apple is a monopoly. Redhat is not a monopoly because they are not the only makers of Linux. But since neither Redhat or Apple compete against Microsoft, it doesn't matter. It was kind of funny reading. :) |
| #19 By 2332 (129.21.145.80) at 1/20/2002 8:28:39 PM |
| #58 - Ya... and Judge Jackson has a clue. :-) |
| #20 By 4209 (163.192.21.3) at 1/21/2002 8:40:57 AM |
| Soda #58, so by that definition, Ford is a monopoly becuase they are the only ones that make Ford cars. I did not read Jackson's findings but if that is the case, then MS is paying there lawyers way to much to be idiots. But then again Jackson is an idiot. |
| #21 By 3339 (206.216.3.134) at 1/21/2002 4:04:18 PM |
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Please, RMD, and all you others who think you know half a lick about economics or federal antitrust law... You don't. In the current, legal, and upheld definition of Microsoft being a monopoly is there anything that says: "well, actually they aren't because Red Hat exists." Well, guess what, a big company (AOLTW) buying a small niche OS business does not make them a "competing monopoly" nor does it mean there is a viable competitor to MS therefore they are no longer a monopoly. The market was defined as a consumer desktop OS on an Intel processor, not big companies that own other big companies. Just because AOL is big doesn't mean RedHat's marketshare jumped to 30%, does it, ye of simple (and wrong) thought processes. Competition can exist, but a monopoly may defined above a certain threshold. Competition can come from outside the market (i.e. middleware). This doesn't change the fact that MS is a monopoly. Nor does AOL owning an OS.
You guys will hold onto the most fallacious and idiotic arguements years after they have been settled already. And then claim such intelligence and prowess with the issues that you can make silly, silly pronouncements. Get over it. |
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