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Strategies & Market Trends : Bowling Alleys and Tornadoes: G&K Hunting Grounds -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (61)	7/26/1999 10:47:00 PM
From: HeyRainier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 153

Here's an interesting article in today's WSJ about the battle between AOL and MSFT, which talks about their battle to keep "instant messaging" platform open or closed (note: you must be a WSJ Interactive Edition subscriber to read the article): interactive.wsj.com "...Where Microsoft's programmers managed to get their service working with AOL's again by Sunday, AOL is likely to be able to keep changing the communications protocols that govern how computers talk to the company's server systems, said Richard Dyn, vice president of marketing at Tribal Voice Inc., an instant-messaging company in Scotts Valley, Calif. "AOL has more control over the situation," agreed Brian Park, a senior producer in charge of Yahoo's message service..." What's so interesting about this is how it displays the advantages one has when you are the Gorilla of one particular market niche, such as AOL's hold on the Instant Messaging market, the true "killer app" of the internet. It displays in perfect fashion how relatively easy it is for AOL to knock other competitors off balance by switching their platform around to prevent outsiders (chimps) from gaining any foothold in their market. Rainier