Sources inside AOL and Red Hat say AOL is making a major internal switch to Linux, and the long-rumored AOL default browser switch from Microsoft"s Internet Explorer to Mozilla -- or at least Mozilla"s Gecko rendering engine -- is well under way, but AOL will probably not offer an AOL client for Linux in the forseeable future.
According to several Red Hat and AOL employees who spoke to NewsForge but asked us not to use their names, recent negotiations between AOL and Red Hat that led to rumors about AOL considering a Red Hat acquisition were really negotiations for support contracts that will help AOL use Linux more effectively.
AOL is switching to Linux for the same reason most large companies make the change: to save money. Thousands of AOL servers are already 100% Linux, and more are switching over every day.