Looks like the death of Netscape is official. The price Microsoft paid for an unchallenged monopoly on browsers going forward? $750 million dollars plus kick backs. On the up side, less browser compatibility issues to worry about when you develop a web site. On the down site, Bill Gates can now control the future of HTML and XML standards, unless a new browser rival arises. I think Sun has a browser, and there is always Opera, but the future looks pretty grim.
Some details from Peter Lewis at Fortune:
Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, and Steve Case, the newly unemployed former chairman of AOL Time Warner, were at the same cocktail party this week in North San Diego when AOL officially surrendered in the Browser Wars. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer actually crushed AOL’s Netscape in the marketplace long ago, using WMDs (weapons of monopoly deployment), but the formal surrender papers were not signed until Wednesday.I have no idea whether the two men even discussed the demise of Netscape; the final details of Netscape’s euthanasia were handled by lawyers. Besides, Case has not been involved in day-to-day operations of AOL Time Warner for a couple of weeks now.
But it was interesting that the legal settlement ending one of the most bitter corporate lawsuits in recent history was reached while Gates and Case were both schmoozing at the Four Seasons.
In case you missed it, Microsoft, already ascertained by the courts to have used its monopoly powers illegally to crush Netscape, agreed Wednesday to pay $750 million to AOL Time Warner (FORTUNE’s parent) in return for AOL dropping a private antitrust suit. Case bought Netscape for $10 billion back in the heady days of 1999 as a weapon to fight Microsoft. Rather than pursue a trial in an attempt to recover the billions lost to Microsoft’s predatory practices, AOL is tossing in the towel.
Yeah, sure, the Netscape browser is still around and AOL still has more than 200 people working in the Netscape division. But as part of the settlement, AOL asked for and got the right to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer royalty-free through the end of the decade. The $750 million settlement that AOL will receive from Microsoft isn’t going to bolster the Netscape division, but rather to reduce AOL Time Warner’s crushing debt load.
I’m eagerly awaiting the company memo explaining how Netscape fits into AOL’s plans going forward. It’s hard to see how it does.