MC2 Post 1241 Of Microsoft, Netscape, Patents and Open Standards

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I'm Re-Reading Wu's The Master Switch, in which Bell offered to sell to competitor Western Electric its

Telephone Patents for 100,000 dollars.  The Telegraph company refused, which among other things lead to it's demise...   Wingman.

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A While Back, Microsoft did what it could to Kill

Netscape.  This week Microsoft paid 

1 Billion Dollars plus

for some patents...

Read On:

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From:  http://blogs.computerworlduk.com

 

Here’s a deal that would have made many minds explode back in the 1990s: Microsoft is buying Netscape.

Or at least most of the important parts of the company that used to be synonymous with “Internet.” That’s a side component of the $1 billion patent sale that AOL and Microsoft announced this morning. As part of the transaction, AOL announced that it was selling off “stock of an AOL subsidiary” at a loss, in a move that’s supposed to reduce its overall tax bill.

AOL didn’t disclose the name of that subsidiary in its press release, but a person familiar with the transaction has clued me in: It’s Netscape.

Microsoft will buy the underlying patents for the old browser, but AOL will hang on to the brand and the related Netscape businesses, which make up a grab bag of stuff these days: An ISP, a URL, a brand name, etc.

Link:    http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm

TinyURL:  http://tinyurl.com/7fkykvs  

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