New Plans at AOL
BetaNews was informed this afternoon of a proposal at AOL to expand upon the Mozilla browser and Gecko code to bring it to the forefront of the Internet "browser war" that has been raging on since the beginnings of the Internet browsing phenomenon. As the corporate monster continues in its quest to be the number one provider of content and services via the Time Warner merger, it finds itself being labeled a monopoly much like Microsoft by the public, yet it continues to expand and gain new users.
This proposal will bring Gecko into the palm of your hand, as the Internet's largest service provider plans to adapt the code and develop "micro-browser technology" for use on smaller devices such as Nokia cell phones.
AOL has already been in the news this week as reports of Gamera surfaced and the company alluded to plans to port AOL services to Internet appliances running Linux.
The proposal also outlined plans to collaborate with IBM in developing "enterprise features" to make it more appealing to large customers. These features may include offline mail synchronization, directory replication, the ability to manage and lock preferences, and security features such as S/MIME.
Sun will also be working with America Online to improve support for Java and Java Server Pages to allow developers full optimization of projects using the Mozilla browser.
Keep checking back as we also look into rumors of AOLtv that have been whispered most recently due to America Online being in the spotlight.