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Time Warner Finds AOL Email Inadequate
DragonMagic writes "MSNBC.com carries this article describing the woes at many of Time Warner's companies after AOL's merger, where the internet giant tried to migrate them all to AOL's email services. From crashing software and attachment limits, to missing and misdirected mail, companies such as Time Magazine had to go so far as to have hard copies rushed before deadlines by cab! Plans are now to retreat from this forced migration and return to the services previously held by each company."
...At least you can't complain about spamming. :)
Maybe they designed an anti-spam filter and went a bit too further.
667 The Neighbour of the Beast
AOL is gonna be really angry if Time Warner switches to using Hotmail.com. :-)
Heh...
You've got mail!
You've got...
You've got...
You've...
You've...
You...
This program has performed an Illegal Operation and will be shut down.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
All these years I've said "the problem isn't on my end, it's on YOURS!". Now I have proof.
Everything is mainstream now.
Not to undermind the braintrust of IT professionals at the Time Warner offices or anything.. but how could anyone firing on more than three synapses honestly find the AOL GUI-From-Hell to be a professional grade internet and mail delivery system? I can almost picture the hilarity that would ensue if I was to walk into any of my department or regional managers office and installed a mail application that featured more than four 'smiley faces buttons' and clicking on 'hearts' to access the company address book. By hilarity I mean: Termination Notice. It would only truly be classic, is when one of those poor helldesk drones plugged in the CAT5 to the wall plate, and the computer erupted into a frenzy of busy-signals and asking (politely, to be sure) to try a different wall plate.
Tragic!
I looked who was talking, and it was THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Check the byline of the authors.
"And like that
To deal with this mail problem and not look like hypocrites, AOL will create a new proprietary mail protocol called ALPO (AOL + POP).
The e-mail problems have led many staffers to resume pre-Internet habits. Employees say they are faxing and using Federal Express more than before. They also are picking up the phone or wandering down the corridors in search of human contact. "If all goes well, we'll never have to use e-mail and we'll have to start talking to each other again," says one magazine writer.
Some of the employees have even decided to spend time with their children reading books printed on actual paper. One employee has decided to start up a band with some of his cube mates. "Jim here and I have been neighbors for over 3 years and we used to e-mail all the time, but now that e-mail has become unreliable I've had to actually get to know him. He's pretty groovy."
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
From the article: "and if they [senior and junior executives] tried to send messages to large groups of users they were labeled as spammers and locked out of the system.
This is BAD THING??????? This "feature" should be used as a management training tool.
...you know, the one in the AOL ad? Whose friend says, "for her, it should be, 'you've got LOTS of mail!'"? She's overloading AOL!!!!
Hell, they might as well find the entire AOL Time-Warner conglomerate inadequate, round up all the suits, shoot them, and use their carcasses to make pet food, hot dogs, and spam.
Ewww... don't we get enough SPAM from AOL already?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Is the fact that the only emails received from the AOL accounts had text that read, "ME TOO!"
Actually, the Time Warner users complained most about the ubiquitous "You've Got Mail" voice that had been changed by AOL programmers to say "You've Got Mail, You Lazy, Good for Nothing, Old Economy Loser." And the fact that they now get AOL CDs via interoffice mail every two weeks.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
'Eating your own dogfood' is good to a point.
But if you're a company selling a consumer grade product, you shouldn't assume it will meet your commercial needs.
I doubt if Fisher-Price uses their own toy computers throughout the company, as an extreme example.
They probably don't have the grounds crew using their lawn mowers, either.
They may run "an" AOL client and they may read mail off "an" AOL server but how do you know they are the same client/server as what the rank and file use?
Because I wrote the mail system.
Jay