Barry Schuler, head of America Online Inc’s interactive services division, has told Microsoft’s lawyers that browser share was not a factor in AOL’s decision to buy Netscape Communications Corp. Schuler was questioned in an out-of-court deposition as part of Microsoft’s defense in the government antitrust trial against it. Apparently, Microsoft hopes to show that the Netscape/AOL merger reinvigorates competition in the web browser marketplace.
If that is the company’s intention, it may be disappointed. According to Reuters, Schuler said his company believes that browsers have dried up as a potential revenue stream. There was a lot of concern that the browser business was dead, he said, and we didn’t want to evaluate the value of the deal based on browser market share. Apparently AOL believes that stand-alone browsers have no commercial value now that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been built into Windows 98 – the government’s point exactly.
