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...June already? Soulless corporations of all shapes, sizes and sectors were in the marrying mood this week, from that very French, mistress-included arrangement between AOL, Netscape, and Sun Microsystems, to Exxon and Mobil, to Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra (yes, they count as corporations). Since they can?t all be made in heaven, here are three classic films in which the honeymoon was a rude awakening...
...tasty tidbit Tuesday: Microsoft, he said, had an "astonishing" 38.5 percent profit margin -- more than any other high-tech firm in the Fortune 500. How, then, can this company claim that it doesn't derive benefits from its monopoly position? After all, there's one thing the AOL deal hasn't changed: 89 percent of those Netscape browsers are going to be viewed on a Microsoft-operated machine. Windows, too, is a beast that will...
Gentlemen, we have a deal. AOL and Netscape announced Tuesday morning that their anticipated marriage would go ahead -- after a full month of secret negotiations -- and that AOL would pay $4.21 billion. That's $210 million more than expected -- which, considering Netscape's dire financial straits, is no small potatoes. Netscape shareholders get a healthy 0.45 AOL shares per Netscape share. The company's CEO, Jim Barksdale, gets a seat on AOL's board. And with Sun Microsystems helping out on the server software front, cyberspace has a coalition large enough to contain the mighty Microsoft...
...Tell that to Frederick Warren-Boulton, a leading economist and current Justice Department witness. Warren-Boulton offered what may well become the feds' counter-spin: That Microsoft's exclusive contracts and illegal monopoly leverage drove its bruised browser rivals into the arms of AOL. Meanwhile, a more cultural argument was being made on bulletin boards across the Internet -- that the mainstream will always appropriate successful companies that operate on the fringe. "The battle is over," wrote one AOL-phile. "AOL wins...
...Microsoft, not surprisingly, is crying foul. Isn't this the same sort of deal that landed us in antitrust court, asked Microsoft legal counsel Charles "Rick" Rule? "Unless [the government is] about to go and criminally charge the Netscape and AOL and Sun people, which they aren't, then they can't claim these kinds of negotiations are improper," he said. Of course, none of these companies have a monopoly like Microsoft's to use as leverage. But the talks may become a vindication of Microsoft's central claim -- that you can't regulate an industry that turns topsy-turvy...