"All they need to do is break the chains with Microsoft after the DOJ settlement and buddy up with the MicroApps part that gets broken off with MS."

Norm, the Shrub DoJ surrendered, grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. There will be no MicroApps, just the one huge monolithic Microsoft we know so well - exactly why AOL is making a move.

So Amiga has a Web site. I have a Web site. Britney Spears has a Web site. Big deal. It has no market, no money and no future outside a very small niche.

All the platforms you mention in this and subsequent post have a serious to fatal lack of resources except Sony. Sony (and all the others) lack what Microsoft and AOL have - Internet infrastructure and a huge base of on-line users. That would be extremely expensive and difficult for anyone else to acquire. In other words, none of the others are in the game at all.

Microsoft has control of the PC (even Intel is now locked out of the design spec) and will soon be the dominant manufacturer of what passes for home PCs and devices (XBox out now, XBox home controller out later this year, Secure PC and others in the works). Microsoft has every intent of seizing control of the Internet and is well on its way to that goal.

AOL has a strong desire to survive. To do that, they MUST cut themselves free from Microsoft, and MUST prevent Microsoft from making the Internet its own private preserve. To do that they MUST have their own platform, perhaps not a PC platfrom - an appliance platform will do if properly marketed.

Linux has a good track record in apliances (including a couple you mentioned), but AOL needs a top notch development team - right now. Red Hat has that. Sure, some developers will leave, but money talks - most will stay. AOL will tell them of all the good they'll do for Linux on the desktop, since most of their code will be GPL'd by necessity.

Since AOL is the only credible counter to Microsoft, with money, an Internet infrastructure, and on-line users, this deal needs to be real and it needs to go through - unless you pefer the "All Microsoft Future".