A number of developments are happening on the Internet that AOL couldn't ignore. |
A system that will run Windows Vista may not be capable of using all of its features. |
About 21 percent of large enterprises use Mac OS X on the desktop [and] the same percentage of these businesses also use Mac Office. The deal assures these customers that Microsoft will continue to make Office available for their existing Power PC-based Macs. |
Advertisers looking to extend their brands might think twice about being associated with products that could create disgruntled customers, |
Any company that offers a platform or pseudo-platform needs to be cautious when it begins to compete with partners. |
Any time anyone asks for your credit card number online when you already have an account, consider that to be a fraudulent spam mail. |
Anything is possible, but just because it's possible, doesn't mean that it's feasible. It's not that they can't do it, but can they make it successful. |
AOL has some great content that is broadly appealing to consumers. One thing that Microsoft lacks for MSN is a lot of good content. |
Apple has removed another barrier to switching. |
Are they going to knock Apple out of the sky? No chance. Not anytime soon, anyway, |
Assuming there may have been, or may be, talks between AOL and Microsoft, the timing of the (Yahoo-Microsoft) announcement may have been intentional to influence those presumed discussions. AOL has to decide does it want to work with the Microsoft camp, go its own way or form a strategic alliance with someone else. |
Both products reached the 'good enough' threshold a version or so ago. |
But it's hard to get excited sometimes when your company delivers increasing revenue quarter on quarter, yet you read hype about Apple and their products and they get all the buzz. |
But we'll have to wait and see how that actually works. |
By cutting these technologies free of the mother ship, they are able to develop based on their own merits and without any constraints. I do see the need to support Windows and Office as potentially constraining some development [within Microsoft]. |