That is, it keeps each of its subsidiaries as separate companies with separate identities and functions. The multi-brand strategy will be increasingly important for AOL as it absorbs Time Warner, with its myriad brand names. To the old-timers at Netscape, however, Netcenter was a means, not an end. AOL had a hard time understanding how to best tap into it. That turned out to be a pretty simple task.
Software is hard.
The issues aren't that simple. As for the enterprise software group, they had become essentially employees of Sun Microsystems as part of the pact between the companies. You have to wonder, for the folks that stayed, what opportunity they saw. The heart and soul of the Netscape engineers' culture was to try to change the world through technology, not to change the world through media. That difference made many feel that if they were to stay at the new Netscape, they were joining their old enemy.