Mergers & Acquisitions
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Mergers & Acquisitions........................1 Letter to the Editor.................................2 Radioshift-TiVos Internet Radio ..........4 Download of the Month .......................5 AT&T DSL Email Changes ....................6 Peter’s Hometown Computing Corner 8 Special User Group Offers....................9 Meetings and Club News ...................11 NEWSLETTER OF CONNECTICUT MACINTOSH CONNECTION, INC.JANUARY 2008 Mergers & Acquisitions companies – fully embraced the digital music evolution. By Chris Hart, CMC President Netscape wasn’t helped one bit by I’ve always known that I would the diversion of AOL’s attention and never make it in the business of high they did very little during this finance. The reason? This world of “browser war” to maintain their top big money requires that you be ruth- dog position. As the use of their pri- less and focus solely on what it mary product declined, the takes to fatten that bottom line and company’s fortunes waned. This line your pockets. That’s not me. In resulted in AOL dropping the hatch- fact, I believe such approaches to et in 2003; drastically downsizing business are ultimately self-destruc- Netscape and laying off a majority tive and a hindrance to a healthy of the employees. consumer marketplace. Lack of innovation always spells What’s prompted me to discuss this death for companies whose founda- subject? Well, in the month of tion is built upon the Internet. And December, there were two signifi- the pressure on Netscape was even cant announcements from tech greater, because they were a found- companies who have been around ing father of the modern World for years. Netscape declared that Wide Web. But they simply could- they are ceasing web browser devel- n’t create new products that people opment, and CompUSA said it’s were drawn to. The result is that going out of business. These com- their market share – of both web panies were, respectively, involved browser usage and web traffic (to (in the not-too-distant-past) in Internet Explorer, was gaining dominance Netscape.com) – had been headed mergers and acquisitions. because it was both free (Netscape Navigator downhill for years. was free to individuals, but had a fee for busi- Netscape was the first company to nesses) and came bundled with the popular So, it was really no surprise when successfully make a business out of Microsoft Windows operating system. AOL announced on December 28th web browser software. In the 90s, that Netscape is being closed down. Netscape was the king of the brows- Shortly after acquiring Netscape, America While you can continue to down- er market and the majority of web Online merged with Time Warner to create a load existing versions of the surfers used Netscape Navigator as media goliath. On several levels the merger Netscape Navigator browser, there their tool of choice. made sense, as they were ahead of the curve in will be no development of new ver- merging traditional media with the online sions. The Netscape.com “portal” Then came the acquisition of media world. But at the time, the move site has been rebranded as Netscape in 1999 by America prompted the raising of many eyebrows. And Propeller.com (a strong sign that Online. It was during this time – AOL Time Warner hasn’t done much to satis- AOL wants to retire the Netscape either as a direct result, or not – that fy the skeptics in the years that have passed, name; truly a shame). Meanwhile, the quality of Netscape’s software and the value of both divisions has dropped Netscape.com now points to a ver- and their level of innovation both since the merger. Neither has fully capitalized sion of AOL’s own portal site. waned. Around the same time, on their assets and to its great detriment, Time Continued on page 3 Microsoft’s browser product, Warner has not – like most of the other record 1 Letter To The Editor Thing is, I paid $6000 for that IIcx. In 1989 dollars, it is easily the equivalent CMC member, Neal Zimmerman, of $9000 today. And look at what we’re wrote in to offer his reaction to Chris getting for $1100 today, in comparison NEWSLETTER OF CONNECTICUT MACINTOSH CONNECTION, INC. Hart’s cover article in the Nov/Dec with 1989. A USER GROUP SINCE 1986 issue of this newsletter. Large panel monitors, enormous stor- Editor Hi Chris, age, silent operation, lightning speed - Deena Quilty You left out one major point about and most important, reliability. The computer life-span, and that is compar- freeze-ups and crashes that I experi- Designer ative cost. enced with my older computers are George Maciel virtually non-existent today. And when When I bought an apple IIcx in 1989, it a re-boot is rarely needed, it just takes cost almost $6,000. I used it for about seconds to reload. Photographer seven years - until the world wide web John Scott rendered it obsolete. The world wide Compared to yesteryear, Mac comput- web wasn't even on the radar screen in ers are (almost) free! Publisher 1989, and I certainly got my “money's Regards, Neal Connecticut Macintosh worth” out of that machine. Connection, Inc. 41 Crossroads Plaza Letters to the Editor. Send your comments, dissenting opinions, questions, PMB 1984 rants, raves, etc. to: [email protected]. We’d be happy to hear from you! West Hartford, CT 06117 Printer Budget Printers Going Once...Twice... SOLD! 1718 Park Street Hartford, CT 06106 We welcome submissions from our members! Please submit articles by first of the month for inclusion in our newsletter. All articles should be submitted by email to [email protected] There is so much talent in our group; it would be great to have several mem- photo by ber articles in each issue of Jack Bass the newsletter. CMC’s Board of Directors would like to publicly thank all the companies and people who contributed materials and services for our 2007 annual auc- tion held on November 28th. A complete listing of this year’s contributors is on our web site at ctmac.org. We would also like to thank all the CMC members and guests who made purchases at the auction because, without their support as well, the auc- tion would not have been the huge success it was. Finally, the Board would like to thank Rich Lenoce for doing a splendid job chairing the event this year. Auction night was both a lot of fun for the par- ticipants and a significant fund raiser for the group. 2 Continued from page 1 Apple store-within-a-store the staffing they have stopped carrying many of that it deserved. the great brands they were known for. The one wonderfully bright spot in all It’s a sad situation and I can’t help but this is that the underlying browser Back in the days when the company think that it could have been avoided. technology that Netscape created, was still doing well financially, they (Maybe spending millions on branding called the “Gecko engine,” will acquired the Computer City chain from the “Tweeter Center” concert venue in continue on. In a truly inspired move, Tandy (a.k.a. Radio Shack). I believe Massachusetts wasn’t such a great idea they released this software code to the they quickly closed those stores. A few after all… hmmmm?) open source community many years years later, they acquired the Good ago. (Open Source software is based Guys chain of audio/video stores. Once When it comes to our beloved Apple, around a “community” of developers again, they closed all the stores. Inc. they have largely been avoiding who work collaboratively to develop the temptation of corporation acquisi- software products and tools. Most of So what was the point of this acquisi- tions. With the billions that Apple has these folks freely donate their time to tion? As far as the loyal customers of in the bank, they could buy up compa- the projects, for the greater good of the Good Guys were concerned, there was nies left and right. computing community.) zero benefit. I remember that, for years, west coasters would rave online This is probably for the best, since the Firefox is the most widely used brows- about this chain of stores. Then the last, major acquisition that Apple did er that is based on this Gecko Engine stores they loved were closed by the make was not a success. In 2001, they (and I would argue, the best web new owners. purchased PowerSchool, a school browser in the world). Similarly, the management software company. Five Mac-only browser, Camino, is built So, what the heck is the point of buy- years later, after doing virtually noth- around this Gecko core. And because ing up a successful business – which is ing with the property, they let it go. Gecko is open source, it will likely still not a direct competitor – and then The upside is they realized the mistake be actively supported when the killing it? Maybe there was a good they made and sold off the property Netscape name is a distant memory for business/financial reason. But, all I see before it lost all of its’ value. most people. is that the consumers suffered. The bottom line of all these stories is The same can’t be said for CompUSA, Sadly, the same thing has happened that, in my estimation, consumers see as once the liquidation of the compa- with my once-beloved Tweeter chain no benefit from these mergers and ny’s assets is complete, few people will of audio/video stores. This is partly due acquisitions.