At the Microsoft antitrust trial in Washington, evidence emerged regarding AOL chairman Bob Pittman’s reply to Steve Case’s questions about migrating to a Netscape browser for the AOL client. We’re wrestling with it over and over…but I do think that MSFT is too strong to throw them out of the tent-they can hurt us if they think they have no other option. I think we have a need to stay in business with them, create a need for them to need us…and then leave ourselves the flexibility to always accommodate them to a certain extent… Scott McNealy and Ed Zander at Sun Microsystems were less cautious about the implications of the deal. This means we will be able to deliver web applications to the desktop via the industry’s best and most open browser. And that desktop could be virtually anywhere!, trumpeted McNealy in an email to all employees on the morning the deal was announced, describing it as a big win for Java. However, some of the timescales given for the introduction of new products would appear to be rather optimistic. According to an email by Woody Mewborn at Sun, the companies expected to release an AOL/PC – based upon JavaPC for all Intel platforms…No Microsoft content – by the fall of 1998.
