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AOL Time Warner, acting on the Microsoft allowance of Desktop Icon space negotiable by the computer manufacturers, AOL/TW and Compaq have agreed for AOL to have Desktop Icon space on upcoming Compaq desktops.
AOL and Microsoft had previously been in agreement for an AOL Icon on the Windows Desktop, which entailed AOL using Internet Explorer for the AOL Web Browser. This AOL/Microsoft agreement ended in January, 2001, and after many talks, Microsoft and AOL could not reach an agreement.
To ease the US Government, Microsoft agreed to allow computer manufacturers to have other Desktop Icons shipped on the Windows Desktop. AOL and Compaq are using this, and this will allow AOL Icons on Windows Desktop's from select computer manufacturers.
Kevin Kyle, director of marketing for access services at Compaq had this to say: "The Start menu is part of Windows XP and is partially controlled by Microsoft. We can't remove MSN. We would pull it if we were allowed to, but we don't expect that power to come to us anytime soon. AOL negotiates and pays for its position, while Microsoft dictates it,".
Additonally, AOL is now offering to pay PC makers in order to win customers for its service. AOL wants PC makers to place advertisements on the desktops of computers based on the upcoming Windows XP operating system and will pay $35 per customer that signs up for AOL's Internet service.
The most interesting development here is whether or not AOL will continue to use Internet Explorer as the AOL Web Browser. Could AOL v7 have been jointly developed to use Netscape instead? My internal reports show AOL v6.0/Netscape versions of AOL coming directly out of AOL Japan, built to run on Unix environments. Now that AOL has their desktop Icon back, will they try to take back their Web Browser too? AOL spent many billions on Netscape and virtually hasn't used that asset to their success. AOL is likely to use the Netscape asset more now than ever before, but Netscape will needs tons of work, and a general overhaul first.
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