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On 5/9/02 11:35 AM, "David Thorp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I do second that though. The iApps really have all been something else!
> Apple just grabs something that, yeah everyone else has thought of, but then
> does it the right way! My bet is they've got IM right too... but only while
> in bed with AOL...
Don't know if anyone remembers the history, but Apple actually wrote the
original code that AOL is based off of. This was back when we (I was at
Apple at the time) were still dependent on GE for AppleLink, and people paid
hideous charges for it, including Apple employees. Anyway, Apple decided to
write it's own (based on Stratus' fault-tolerant hardware---overkill as
always), and got very close to releasing it, and management killed the
project. So they sold it to a little company called Quantum Link... Which
became AOL.
Anyway, when Apple wanted to start eWorld, they had to license back the
software from AOL, but AOL wouldn't give them rights to modify, only use,
which is part of what killed eWorld---Apple couldn't "innovate" ;-).
Anyway, I think there were still some clauses in contracts that required AOL
to give access to certain things for a price... In other words, AOL could
set a reasonable price, but not deny.
This was a long time ago, so I might have some minor facts twisted, but...
At least as of 3 years ago, AOL still ran big chunks of their infrastructure
on Stratus---namely IM and Chat Rooms, as they were dependent on StrataLink,
which was a token-ring message passing system.
Bizarre world ;-)
Chris
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