Everyone is pretty gleeful about AOL’s purchase of Netscape. Especially the market, and shareholders of both corporations. Hey, I like to see a tech stock other than Microsoft rise as much as the next guy.
What we’ve forgotten in our joy is that AOL now has a long history of acquiring technology companies. A short list, just off the top of my head includes WAIS (one of the first net search tools), Navisoft (Web server, browser, content designer), Virtual Places (online chat), Johnson-Grace (proprietary graphics compression), Redgate (multimedia development), GNN (web portal and community), Medior (multimedia development), and ANS (internet backbone networking).
Most of these were bought during an “Internet buying spree” starting in 1995. Of all of these brands, only the ANS brand, survived the acquisition. While some, maybe most of the technologies acquired are still used internally, most of them are invisible. AOL has never had the appetite to sell software that wasn’t part of the AOL client. Netscape is the largest branded technology acquisition AOL has made to date, and poses a huge challenge.
What AOL did better than most companies, surprisingly, was integrate the personnel from some of these organizations into AOL’s own organization. In many cases, this meant utilizing their skills in a similar but different capacity. For instance, multimedia designers became AOL content designers. Some of the top current management talent at AOL came from these acquisitions.
So, I agree that AOL’s stock will rise from this deal, and that AOL gets a lot more eyeballs, and that Sun ends up with great technology that it desperately needs (and sells some gear in the bargain).
I’m not so sure about the future of the Netscape client as a separate branded, successful technology. AOL will have to try a lot harder than it usually does to keep from killing off the Netscape brand and fumbling the technology.
