Beg to differ, Neil, if

Beg to differ, Neil, if only a little (below): I think the Wired piece is right on the money, and thanks to author Paul Bourtin for commenting. The point about the old browser wars was that Netscape was ignoring or setting its own standards, which is why Microsoft -- with its small minority market share -- allied itself with the W3C and did a better job of supporting industry standards. Having lost the browser wars, Netscape is trying to do the same thing -- which is exactly what you would predict and expect. It doesn't mean Netscape cares about standards any more than before, only that it has no other option. Either way, I think we are all in favour of users having a choice of standards-based browsers, but that's not something to fight about. There is still a battle, but really it's a battle for subscribers between MSN and America Online. The key question is therefore whether using Netscape in AOL will attract more users or perhaps prevent more paying subcribers from defecting. AOL doesn't deliver Internet standard e-mail, doesn't deliver Internet standard newsgroup access, can deliver non-standard browsing (have you got the original graphics on Web pages or recompressed art files?) and lumbers you with piles of stuff you may well not want -- RealMedia, for example -- but it still has to convince users it is the best way to access the Internet. Microsoft hopes that by offering Esaya's TrueSwitch software, it can convert AOL users to its cheaper and much more standard MSN service, as mentioned in my blog posted below on May 21. As the analysts are pointing out, by switching to Netscape, AOL Time Warner is gambling with $10 billion a year in subscription income. And whether it has won, lost or drawn will not be clear until we see its subscription figures next year and in five year's time.