AOL: Netscape only bargaining chip
InfoWorld | at | by Mike
When [AOL] originally did the [Netscape] acquisition, the big motivation around it was to be able to have a bargaining chip ... to get better terms. They could say, 'We own Netscape and we're willing to use Internet Explorer, but if you don't give us distribution through the Windows desktop we're going to use Netscape and we're going to double its market share overnight and cause you guys lots of problems.' There's no internal goal at AOL, or at least when I was there, to go get browser market share.
Internally at AOL, they don't think about browser market share. They think about getting AOL out to millions of people, so they'll do whatever is most expeditious in doing that. Now, if Microsoft cuts off Internet Explorer from them then, yeah, clearly they'll be able to switch to Netscape. They just don't have any internal motivation to get browser market share.