This deal could hurt AAC (Apple’s chosen delivery format for its iTunes Music Store) big time.
“Microsoft is paying $750 million to AOL Time Warner as part of a wide-ranging settlement that also calls for the companies to jointly cooperate on software distribution and digital media. As part of a wide-ranging deal announced Thursday, the companies will drop pending litigation, including an antitrust complaint filed by AOL Time Warner’s Netscape Communications unit in January 2002 against Microsoft. AOL also agreed to a seven-year royalty-free license of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. ‘It seemed like an opportunity to do something smart for both companies was present,’ AOL Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons said during a conference call with reporters. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates added during the call, ‘It puts any past issues behind us. It extends the technical cooperation we’ve had with AOL on the browser while increasing cooperation in other areas such as new ways to distribute digital content,'” report Ian Fried and Jim Hu for CNET News.
Key elements of this deal with the devil include:
– Exploring AOL and MSN Messenger interoperability
– Microsoft will help distribute AOL CD-ROMs to Wintel box assemblers
– AOL receives a long-term license to use Microsoft’s Windows Media 9
– Finding ways to increase the adoption and distribution of digital media via Windows Media format
There is no word, yet, on the fate of AOL’s plans to use Dolby Laboratories’ AAC (also the iTunes Music Store format) audio technology in its Internet radio products that we reported on earlier today. But you can draw your own conclusions as to what will happen with that plan now.
Full article here.
Here comes MS, paying off companies to use their Windows Media format – you could see it coming a mile away.
Hope Steve Jobs has an ace up his sleeve.
Mac OS X on x86, anyone? Hit ’em where it’ll hurt, Steve!!!
Interesting move here, but this isn’t a buyoff, it’s a cash settlement. Still, the licensing of WMA doesn’t sound good… though if AOL has brains they’d do everything they can to make both WMA and AAC file formats available to their customers.
This just makes me HATE M$ even more!!! monoplying the market with bribes!
Money can buy ANYTHING, huh? What is F**k is the world becoming???!!!!
Maybe you can buy your way out of trouble.
Yup and how about Amazon.com perhaps using Windows Media 9 to launch the largest online music store tied into AOL somehow (jeez). This is very bad news for AAC and Quicktime. Also if this happens MS could give us Apple users a crippled Media player and we’d be SOL.
I work for a Canadian film studio and MS is making huge inroads with the tablet PC with writers and producers using Final Draft script writing software. They love the thing. I hope Apple has device coming because they could loose the market here and be screwed.
Why is it that Microsoft always benefits when it settles valid claims that it broke the law?
All I see here are two huge old dinosaurs trying to make something new by combining old ideas. Apple has nothing to worry about. Neither M$ nor AOL has ever produced anything of quality.
There is no reason for Porche to worry if Ford and GM collaborate on a project.
Until Apple has a smaller market share than Porche does in their respective industries, I’m not going to worry.
Joe wrote:
“This is very bad news for AAC and Quicktime. Also if this happens MS could give us Apple users a crippled Media player and we’d be SOL.”
Microsoft already DOES offer a crippled media player: ever tried playing a Windows Media link that has DRM? There is no Digital Rights Management in the current version of the Mac player, meaning most of the good Windows Media clips out there (http://www.nhl.com comes to mind) won’t play on the mac, argh! They always win…
As usual MS makes the smart business move, and uses its overwhelming financial strength to leverage its inferior technology onto an unenthusiastic market. They will of course also continue to provide inferior MacOS players to ensure that us Mac users have an worse experience.
Still it’s the American way. Just like how your government treats the rest of the world. Freedom fries anyone?
burn burn burn bill gates
Capitalism at its finest.
You know what – good for them. It is news like this that forces Apple to stay on their toes and push the bar even higher. I hate Windose just as much as all of you, but without their persistence I would not have the hardware and software I use and love today. So I say good for AOL and M$ – I can not wait to see what other great improvements it forces for me and my Macs.
Microsoft Buys its way out of another criminal offense.. Oh Well. Sad for all of us..
Typical. What came first the dollar or intelligence? I guess looking at the way things generally tend to go I know which comes first now.
microsoft cant afford to be in a habit of giving 750 mil (almost a billion dollars away) i have read somewere on the internet that ms only has 45 billion in the bank,revenue from ms office is falling due to competion and high price linux is begining to squeeze ms in the server and budget
consumer markets and apple is a big pain in the ass for ms due to being constantly five or six years ahead of readmonds game.i think in five to ten years time microsoft will a much smaller company because the the competion from apple and linnux will have matured into very saleable products leaving a lot of variety on the high street, if i had my way i would like to see the consumer market become like this 30% budget pc: linux os based 40% middle ground pc: windows os based and 30% cream of the crop pc os x apl macintosh COMPETION IS GOOD FOR EVERYONE EVEN APPLE AND ESPECIALLY MICROSOFT.
It will be interesting to see how long Microsoft can continue to “buy” dominance as with SCO Unix/Linux licensing, and now after having “bought” its way out of trouble with AOL-Time Warner. Or, will product quality finally win out. Users are getting more knowledgeable: witness the city of Munich switching to Linux recently, even with higher quotes from IBM and others. Hope springs eternal!
Man oh man, I can never understand why there is such a hugh amount of hate and bashing for Microsoft. They simply did what ANY other sucessful business would have done in this case , make the smart deal. They are just a computer company, not a hostile dictatorship trying to take over the free world and enslave your children, relax. I too love my Macs and use them because I know they are a better product than what Microsoft puts out, but having said that I will say Windows is a great operating system. It has not reached its domination of the market because of “dark and illegal” business practices by Bill Gates, it has done so by giving it’s customer a useful product and improving it year to year just like Apple has. To say that Windows is a piece of “crap” is to say the millions of people worldwide using Windows (some of who know more about computing than any of us) are idiots, please! Just relax and enjoy you Macs and try not to look for the Antichrist coming out of Microsoft. All this Microsoft hating and bashing makes the Mac users (again I am a avid one) sound like a bunch of angry and jealous children that are mad because “their computer company is more succesful than our computer company” so we have to bash it. As far as MS just “stealing” everything Apple does and sticking it in Windows, tell me one company that does not “steal” from the competion. Hell Apple did so from Xerox with the Mac in the early 80s and I think we all still love Apple and our Macs. Any Xerox fans still angry with Apple? I mean Apple has al gore as part of their company now, talk about your “dark & illegal” managment in a company, do we need any reminder of the scandels & crimes of the duo of gore and clinton……wait…. I guess he did invent the internet….I understand why Jobs picked him now……..my mistake! In the end I am happy to have my Macs and since I know they are better than my friends Windows computer I do not feel the need to attack their systems or operating system. We have and use a better product than any from MS and I know better than any that will come from MS in the future, relax and enjoy that.
“Hell Apple did so from Xerox with the Mac in the early 80s and I think we all still love Apple and our Macs.”
You’re incorrect on that statement… Xerox gave away the technology to Apple pretty much, though Apple did give away shares to Xerox (which they sold later) and Apple hired almost all the engineers from PARC that were involved in the creation of the GUI.
Get your facts straight!!!
My point was that Apple did not invent the technology, that took it from someone else……..rather they were given it, bought it or stole it the fact remains it came from outside their company.
“My point was that Apple did not invent the technology, that took it from someone else……..rather they were given it, bought it or stole it the fact remains it came from outside their company.”
Neither did Xerox PARC ‘officially’, but Xerox PARC evolved it from its origins from somewhere else and pretty much took claims on the discovery. Apple was researching/developing GUI technology even before getting to see what PARC was working on with the Alto/Star project.
http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html
“but Xerox PARC evolved it from its origins from somewhere else and pretty much took claims on the discovery”
I think this speaks for my point even more, every company takes ideals and technology from others and will use it, MS, Ford, GE, Disney and yes even our beloved Apple. I hope you are not missing my main point, MS is no different, thus no more evil than any of these companies or any other company for that matter. I admire many things about Apple and Jobs/Woz for the vision they had for the PC, but they in part at least obtained that vison from others just as Gates has done. I still do not see the need for some mass hatred of MS by we Apple users just beacuse MS is more sucessful than Apple. We seem to spend alot of time and effort trashing MS to each other (whats the point in that?) or to MS users. We tell the MS users that Windows sucks, is trash, is useless etc etc when they are using everyday and know that it is a good OS. What we should be doing is pointing out why the Apple OS is better! Again I think the name calling and whinning make us sound like sore losers. I would say we have alot in common on this matter of which OS is better and I hope my earlier post do not offend, I just wanted to react to years of pointless MS bashing. I think we have a chance with OS X to regain some market share for Apple, I just choose to focus on that in stead of MS. I am a Apple fan for life, I own no computer that does not run an Apple OS, I have 5 or 6 AppleT-Shirts which I wear often in public no less, hell my car has a Apple decal in the back window but that does not blind me to the truth about MS, its just a company.