Posted: 30th May, 2003 By: MarkJ
Microsoft has agreed to settle a private antitrust suit with AOL Time Warner for £470 Million. However, the outcome means that Microsoft must allow AOL to license its browser software for seven years:
The case was brought "to restore competition lost in the operating system market and in the Web browser market because of Microsoft's illegal conduct."
But amongst the many bonuses for Redmond in the settlement, AOL committed to renewing its royalty-free license to incorporate Internet Explorer into its own software for seven years. Asked if this meant that AOL's Netscape division would be spun-off, AOL CEO Richard Parsons replied, "Not at this point," following up later with "Not at this time."
Hardly a resounding vote of confidence in the open source browser. AOL is the main sponsor, and the largest commercial client of the Mozilla project. The Netscape division employs between "two and three hundred" staff in Silicon Valley, a far cry from 1998 when AOL acquired the company in a stock swap worth $4.2 billion.It remains to be seen what will happen, although the possibility of AOLs client-side ISP software switching back to IE is looming. More @
The Register.