Word: aol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Though Microsoft's lawyers haven't had a chance to make that statement yet, company spokesmen did ballyhoo the AOL-Time Warner deal as proof that the high-tech industries in which Microsoft competes--unfairly, according to the Justice Department--are evolving so quickly and convulsively that to assert Microsoft exerts monopolistic power is "almost comical...
...sources close to the government reported that Justice is still not amused. Throughout last week, the feds continued to favor the most draconian of penalties for Microsoft: a breakup of the software giant. The AOL-Time Warner merger may have altered the landscape today, the reasoning goes, but the government's antitrust case is built around events that happened in 1994 and 1995. Microsoft's business practices back then--stifling competition and bullying clients when it had market-share dominance--are the issue, not the company's position in today's media world...
Both Gates and Ballmer emphasized Microsoft's identity as a software company, rather than, say, as a content and Internet company like AOL Time Warner. The word content, which figured prominently in Microsoft pronouncements and acquisitions just a few months ago, was barely uttered. "Software is our heritage, and it's our future," said Ballmer. "Our plan is to develop a new software-services platform that will ignite opportunities for partners around the world." Microsoft, by developing what it calls Next Generation Windows Services--software that will shift applications such as databases and word processing from your computer...
...amused to read in an account of the press conference announcing the merger of Time Warner and America Online how AOL's Steve Case, who usually wears khakis and a denim shirt, put on a suit for the occasion, while Time Warner's Gerald Levin, who used to be a conservative dresser, showed up without a tie. The identity blur begins...
Besides, editorialists at both the New York Times and the Washington Post tell citizens worried about media diversity and consumers worried about their pocketbooks to relax. This is a merger of cyber apples and earthbound oranges. AOL already has 20 million customers (about half the market) for the dial-up services that link computers to the Internet. Time Warner is already the world's biggest media conglomerate. Joining the two won't substantially increase either's share of its market. As the Post put it, "Down the road, there may be reasons to fear the muscle of AOL Time Warner...