AOLinux:
The AOL Time Warner acquisition of Red Hat seems to be a dirty rumor. Of course, AOL is cagily saying “they are not in negotiations with Red Hat” and Red Hat is saying nothing. Both parties admit to having been in some kind of informal discussoin. So maybe something will happen yet. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting idea. Adam Curry wrote
If AOL/Time Warner feels they need to be an OS company then I presume content is a dead horse, Sell your stock, last one out turns off the lights.
I think Adam missed the point. It’s not that AOL should be looking at becoming an OS company, but that they should be looking at (and maybe are) becoming a company that’s not dependent on a Microsoft operating system. The fact that AOL Time Warner is suing Microsoft for anti-competitive practices related to squashing Netscape probably means that they’re ready to start cutting the Microsoft umbilical cord (or is that the umBILLical cord?).
Remember: the AOL-Microsoft talks to renew AOL Time Warner’s contract to use Internet Explorer as the engine under the hood of the AOL app broke down because Microsoft wanted a stipulation that AOL would never sue. Given that AOL has taken off the kid gloves, I’d expect to see the next version of AOL’s app powered by a Netscape browser engine.