Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the corporate-incest dept.
cblood writes: "This article tells how the worker bees at Time Warner are forced to switch to AOL for their email. That's one way to increase your user base." Turns out that not everyone at Time-Warner wants to hear "you've got mail!" 50 times a day.
I work at Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta and we have been dreading this conversion for a long time. Unlike Time Inc, we have been using Outlook + Exchange for almost a year now. AOL's mail is a serious joke, they have no idea how dependant we have become on Outlooks calendar and meeting tools. (In fact, alot of our in-house applications have been developed to work with exchange, oh well back to the drawing board...)
So far they have pushed back our conversion to AOL mail because we are too dependant on Outlook and our managment would grind to a halt (turner has been firmly partnered with Microsoft since before the merger!). To make up for it, they are developing somesort of calendar + meeting thing using netscapes webserver. But I haven't heard much about it. Also my email address will be @aol.com so forget about geting my real name as a username. I'll end up as like JoeSmi543879879@aol.com. Hows that for professionalism? Much better than Joe.Smith@turner.com! (not my real email btw!)
Also my email address will be @aol.com so forget about geting my real name as a username. I'll end up as like JoeSmi543879879@aol.com. Hows that for professionalism? Much better than Joe.Smith@turner.com! (not my real email btw!)
But you DO get five screen names! You can be JoeSmi543879879@aol.com for internal email, thatguyjoeatturner@aol.com for external customers, momslittleangeljoe@aol.com to your mom, homerworks@aol.com for that Simpson's listserv, and teengurl69@aol.com for those chat rooms. It's the perfect corporate system!:)
For those that lack a sarcasm detector, this is humor.
-- What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Re:Its the right thing to do. Period. No arguments
by
sammy+baby
·
· Score: 5
Time and again the Linux crowd forget that normal people DO NOT USE LINUX BECAUSE IT HAS A COMMAND LINE. The sooner you get rid of xterm and kterm and the like, then we can consider Linux an OS for 'the rest of us'. Until then like the stick-shift automobile, it will remain strictly a specialist interest.
Oh, for chrissake.
In the few dozen posts that were up at the time, I didn't see a single suggestion that TW employees should be using pine, or elm, or kmail, or whatever. Mostly, when they've suggested anything, they're suggesting that they should use Outlook & Exchange. And the majority of those criticizing the move aren't suggesting a specific alternative: they're just saying that AOL sucks.
And at some level, it's hard to argue with that. In the spectrum of features vs. usability, AOL mail is slanted pretty far towards the latter. That's great for people who don't know anything about applications, but at the corporate level, one hopes (perhaps against hope) that folks can at least, you know, use Office.
Don't get me wrong, I am pro-linux, just not for non-tech savvy people who do not understand what they are getting themselves into. Let them stick with their stupid windoze and Mircro$oft.
You don't have to be a Linux zealot to think that using AOL for corporate e-mail is a dumb-ass move.
How's this for irony? Microsoft doesn't require people to use Windows, but the company I work for (which I will not name) is standardizing on the Intel/MS windows, to the point they don't support anything but the "official" software - MS Windows, MS office, Outlook (and web Outlook for us using Sun machines for development). The most amusing part? This is the same company that produces the chips for the Mac! (Along with lots of cell phones)
That's right... while we saw a nice message from the CEO about how all employees should be using our phones, not a competitor's, we refuse to use computers that use our chips. And people wonder why our stock and market shares seem to keep decreasing... (though what I'm working on is actually a good product, and everyone involved gets one of those phones for free, though I wish they'd give us those newly-released Java-enabled handsets...) ---
-- "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Good motivation for them to block more AOL spam
by
kriegsman
·
· Score: 5
When every Time-Warner employee starts getting an AOL-sized portion of breakfast spam every morning, maybe they will be better motivated to improve AOL's anti-spam filters.
I can see it now... "MAKE MONEY FAST, ChrmnSteve78!"
I guess after stock values have stopped climbing so consistently that it takes some extra carrots to get bright programmers willing to surgically operate on spaghetti:)
Or maybe they weren't fundamentalist idiots about operating systems - like the average slashdotter is - in the first place? Just a thought.
The Ideal outcome- Yes, AOL mail has some shortcomings; however, I imagine that a few months of in-house usage could really help them find and eliminate a lot of problems with the program.
The Likely outcome- AOL will fall far short of employee's requirements, productivity will plummet, and AOL/TW will spend millions trying to make it work, followed by more millions going back to the old system.
Are they expecting employees to use the "home" version of AOL or is there a new corporate version?
If this trend continues...
by
ackthpt
·
· Score: 5
Hormel workers will only be allowed to receive Spam!
-- All your.sig are belong to us!
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is AOL Email truly Enterprise Calibre? I think Not
by
hillct
·
· Score: 5
Is AOL mail really a corporate calibre product? It doesn't seem so. It is targeted tward the technical novice, providing few features and poor integration with scheduling and other groupware features. A Time magazine employee summed it up best, in the NY Times Article itself:
even employees who acknowledge that their previous e-mail system "isn't very good" are not convinced that America Online is the best choice for a corporate e-mail program. "AOL got popular because it's really simple and easy to use," said a writer at a Time Inc. magazine. "But when you're in a workplace, it's just not very full featured."
Another concern is security. Well it seems that they have that one covered, although SecurID is a cumbersome system. It's neat for the geek in all of us, to have a card with a rotating numerical pin for security, but it is no more secure than many of the more recent advances in this field, and it's tremendously inconvenient. Again, from the article:
Another issue is the added level of security that will be required for employees to retrieve their e-mail. Rather than logging on to the network by typing in a name and password, employees will also need to type in a number that appears on a digital card. Because the number changes every few seconds, the device adds a level of security to the e-mail system, but it also creates headaches for employees.
Unfortunately, they don't seem to realize how much of a 'headache for employees' it really is. At my ompany, a large telecom equipment manufacturer, we chose do do away with securid (implementing other solutions) because the inconvenience outweighed the benefit.
As much as it pains me to say this, Microsoft has one of the best Enterprise email systems right now. Granted, it doesn't scale vary well and it's tremendously expensive when compared to SMTP based systems, but it does have comprehensive groupware features. The other possibilities would have been Lotus CC:Mail or Novel Groupwise which are both far past their prime and either in need of being severely overhauled, or End-Of-Lifed by their companies.
The final class of mail system are those new.com outsourced enterprise mail solutions such as was offered by Mail.com and others, although I believe that company has just gone through some restructuring, where the enterprise email services were re-branded and spun off from the free personal email service (If someone can enlighten me here I'd appreciate it).
In any case, AOL has chosen the worst of a set of halfway decent possibilities - Oh, an I almost forgot IPlanet.com which offers what used to be the Netscape mail and calendar products -. There is something to be said for promoting your own products (at my company we use the telephones we produce, and the switching systems we produce) but in cses where use of your own company's product will impact your productivity, or otherwise negitively impact the work of your employees, it would be a severely misguided decision.
Whoopee! I Can't Wait!!!
by
jjjpinkojjj
·
· Score: 5
im and aol tyme warder employie, and i thinks this is a ggood move. aol is soo kewl! i here you can get on the internet with it! and the web too! aol is just the most teknologicly advanced company in the hole world!
and i don't apreciate the remark above about "eating our own dogfood". i've never seen any dogfood here in the 8 years that ive worked for the company. whoever said that is obvoiusly not an employie and should not be alowed to post on slash-dart.
yay! i just got mail! i'm ecspecting a reply back from some company that promised i wood get rich if i just sent them my credit card number. cood be them!! gotta go!
-- I'd like to dip my balls in that.
They're not forced to use it
by
jhill
·
· Score: 5
They're not forced to use the AOL Client, they can do things inside the company that will allow them to get an aol.net account which will allow them to use an SMTP and POP3 server so that they can choose whatever mail package they want. Don't feel sorry for them b/c they have to use it, because they don't.
Slashdot Mirror
I work at Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta and we have been dreading this conversion for a long time. Unlike Time Inc, we have been using Outlook + Exchange for almost a year now. AOL's mail is a serious joke, they have no idea how dependant we have become on Outlooks calendar and meeting tools. (In fact, alot of our in-house applications have been developed to work with exchange, oh well back to the drawing board...) So far they have pushed back our conversion to AOL mail because we are too dependant on Outlook and our managment would grind to a halt (turner has been firmly partnered with Microsoft since before the merger!). To make up for it, they are developing somesort of calendar + meeting thing using netscapes webserver. But I haven't heard much about it. Also my email address will be @aol.com so forget about geting my real name as a username. I'll end up as like JoeSmi543879879@aol.com. Hows that for professionalism? Much better than Joe.Smith@turner.com! (not my real email btw!)
Well at least I get one of those cool badges....
Oh, for chrissake.
In the few dozen posts that were up at the time, I didn't see a single suggestion that TW employees should be using pine, or elm, or kmail, or whatever. Mostly, when they've suggested anything, they're suggesting that they should use Outlook & Exchange. And the majority of those criticizing the move aren't suggesting a specific alternative: they're just saying that AOL sucks.
And at some level, it's hard to argue with that. In the spectrum of features vs. usability, AOL mail is slanted pretty far towards the latter. That's great for people who don't know anything about applications, but at the corporate level, one hopes (perhaps against hope) that folks can at least, you know, use Office.
You don't have to be a Linux zealot to think that using AOL for corporate e-mail is a dumb-ass move.
How's this for irony? Microsoft doesn't require people to use Windows, but the company I work for (which I will not name) is standardizing on the Intel/MS windows, to the point they don't support anything but the "official" software - MS Windows, MS office, Outlook (and web Outlook for us using Sun machines for development). The most amusing part? This is the same company that produces the chips for the Mac! (Along with lots of cell phones)
That's right... while we saw a nice message from the CEO about how all employees should be using our phones, not a competitor's, we refuse to use computers that use our chips. And people wonder why our stock and market shares seem to keep decreasing... (though what I'm working on is actually a good product, and everyone involved gets one of those phones for free, though I wish they'd give us those newly-released Java-enabled handsets...)
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
When every Time-Warner employee starts getting an AOL-sized portion of breakfast spam every morning, maybe they will be better motivated to improve AOL's anti-spam filters.
I can see it now... "MAKE MONEY FAST, ChrmnSteve78!"
-Mark
Absolutely. And since Fisher-Price produces toy telephones, all of its employees should have to use them for business.
I guess after stock values have stopped climbing so consistently that it takes some extra carrots to get bright programmers willing to surgically operate on spaghetti:)
Or maybe they weren't fundamentalist idiots about operating systems - like the average slashdotter is - in the first place? Just a thought.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The Ideal outcome- Yes, AOL mail has some shortcomings; however, I imagine that a few months of in-house usage could really help them find and eliminate a lot of problems with the program.
The Likely outcome- AOL will fall far short of employee's requirements, productivity will plummet, and AOL/TW will spend millions trying to make it work, followed by more millions going back to the old system.
Are they expecting employees to use the "home" version of AOL or is there a new corporate version?
got a ton of AOL cds if they need them.
This is almost as ridiculous as what some people plan to do about California's Impending Energy Craptasm.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As much as it pains me to say this, Microsoft has one of the best Enterprise email systems right now. Granted, it doesn't scale vary well and it's tremendously expensive when compared to SMTP based systems, but it does have comprehensive groupware features. The other possibilities would have been Lotus CC:Mail or Novel Groupwise which are both far past their prime and either in need of being severely overhauled, or End-Of-Lifed by their companies.
The final class of mail system are those new
In any case, AOL has chosen the worst of a set of halfway decent possibilities - Oh, an I almost forgot IPlanet.com which offers what used to be the Netscape mail and calendar products -. There is something to be said for promoting your own products (at my company we use the telephones we produce, and the switching systems we produce) but in cses where use of your own company's product will impact your productivity, or otherwise negitively impact the work of your employees, it would be a severely misguided decision.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
im and aol tyme warder employie, and i thinks this is a ggood move. aol is soo kewl! i here you can get on the internet with it! and the web too! aol is just the most teknologicly advanced company in the hole world! and i don't apreciate the remark above about "eating our own dogfood". i've never seen any dogfood here in the 8 years that ive worked for the company. whoever said that is obvoiusly not an employie and should not be alowed to post on slash-dart. yay! i just got mail! i'm ecspecting a reply back from some company that promised i wood get rich if i just sent them my credit card number. cood be them!! gotta go!
I'd like to dip my balls in that.
They're not forced to use the AOL Client, they can do things inside the company that will allow them to get an aol.net account which will allow them to use an SMTP and POP3 server so that they can choose whatever mail package they want. Don't feel sorry for them b/c they have to use it, because they don't.