AOL To Be Purchased By T-Online?

Not surprising... by swordboy · 2003-11-13 01:00 · Score: 2, Informative

This isn't surprising considering that they just dropped AOL from the "AOL Time Warner name.

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Life is the leading cause of death in America.

Re:Not surprising... by gfxguy · 2003-11-13 01:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yeah, but that's ALL they did... it was a name change only, it's not like the company split.

As an employee, I wish they would - AOL consumed Time Warner because they had artificially high stock prices and decided it was time for something with real value. They've been dragging us down ever since.

Don't get me wrong - the press is really hard on AOL. Yes, customers are leaving, but they still have the most customers and charge the highest price. They are still making tons of cash, they're just making less and less of it.

While I wish the company would split, I don't see how another ISP could buy out the largest ISP in the world. Wishful thinking.

Full disclosure: I don't read German, I didn't read the article, so maybe I'm missing something.

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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Re:Not surprising... by perly-king-69 · 2003-11-13 01:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

Don't forget also that last week EMI and Time Warner were in talks to merge their music divisions

AOL/Time Warner demerger on the cards

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This sig is inoffensive.
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:37 · Score: 0

I hate to say this, but this sounds exactly like how the MindSpring employees felt when Earthlink "merged" and took over the company name....

Unfortunately, there is no hope. Your company is gone and will probably never come back. Do what so many of the ex-MindSpring employees did - start your own company ;-)
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:13 · Score: 2, Funny

Maybe T-Online can do for AOL what Daimler did for Chrysler.
Re:Not surprising... by BigBir3d · 2003-11-13 03:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Not just an ISP. The also own T-Mobile (cell carrier - biggest in Germany I think, and growing in the US). They are tied in with Bergelsmann group (not sure on that spelling). Unlike AOL, there is real money backing up T.
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:05 · Score: 1, Insightful

From what I understand, T is a German telecom monopoly. It's not really surprising that they are expanding their market into America since they already have a regulated hold on their native country.

I for one welcome our new German overlords.
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:15 · Score: 0

As an employee, I wish they would - AOL consumed Time Warner because they had artificially high stock prices and decided it was time for something with real value. They've been dragging us down ever since.

I am also an employee, but in the AOL camp. If you want to point fingers at who caused the failed merger, why not have a long hard look at the people who have refused to collaborate? Sure, AOL had an inflated stock price, but if I remember correctly, the TW side of the house brought their enormous debt into the conglomeration.

You're right, we get beat up in the press a lot, but we really don't need the same beating at home. Get off you high horse and try making things better instead of pointing the finger.
Re:Not surprising... by Uncle_Al · 2003-11-13 03:30 · Score: 1

not completely right. They used to be a monopoly but the markets have been opened up. (But since they had a very good starting point, at least with landlines, they still have a very dominant market share.) Telekom is regulated but this regulation is at least supposed to open the markets further...

T-Online in itself has been spun off, and is traded on the german stock exchanges...but probably Telekom still owns a majority of the shares...
...and if I read correctly T-Online denied to be in talks with AOL...but...whatever... ;-)

Just my two cents...
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:45 · Score: 0

ROWR! You two should meet in the parking lot after work with broken beer bottles at 5 paces.
Re:Not surprising... by gfxguy · 2003-11-13 03:46 · Score: 1

AOL still has Time Warner, though... beat that! While I'd like to see them split, the name change was only that - a change in name.

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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Re:Not surprising... by gfxguy · 2003-11-13 03:49 · Score: 1

I hate to say this, but this sounds exactly like how the MindSpring employees felt when Earthlink "merged" and took over the company name....

Unfortunately, there is no hope. Your company is gone and will probably never come back. Do what so many of the ex-MindSpring employees did - start your own company ;-)

I should have clarified - I'm an employee of Time Warner (specifically Turner Broadcasting). I personally wouldn't mind getting rid of AOL, but that is my opinion. Although it's not so obvious, they are more integrated into the company than most believe, a lot of behind the scenes stuff (for example, I now need an AOL account in order to VPN into the Turner network).

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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Re:Not surprising... by Zeinfeld · 2003-11-13 04:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Don't get me wrong - the press is really hard on AOL. Yes, customers are leaving, but they still have the most customers and charge the highest price. They are still making tons of cash, they're just making less and less of it.
I see AOL as the Apple of the space. If you wind back to the days of the original Mac Apple was making its money from being the easy to use personal computer and charging a premium for doing so. AOL is in pretty much exactly the same niche and with the same limitatations.
The Mac interface was great when the problem was persuading people they could use a computer, to overcome the fear factor. But it was much less useful and started to become a major handicap once there was a large number of technically savy users who wanted to move beyond the one button mouse. [Yes I know you can buy aftermarket add ons, try adding a button to the integrated laptop mouse area, bit of a pain if you want the machine to host an X-Windows session from a linux box app that assumes three buttons)
AOL has the same problem, they can't take the training wheels off without loosing their core market.
The other problem AOL face is that their users quickly outgrow the walled garden content AOL offers. When the Whitehouse first went online AOL sold access to the Whitehouse web site as a 'premium' service at several cents a minute extra, meanwhile the same content was available for free.
At one time it looked like there was a market for 'premium' content but that model only really works if the publishers of the content have no direct distribution channel to the consumer. Once Web sites found that they could support themselves through advertising revenue the need for AOL as a distribution channel went away. Exactly why would I pay AOL to screw up my broadband connection for me?
The problem with buying a company that has a shrinking customer base in an expanding market is that the company may well go the way of buggy-whip Inc. AOL looks to me to be in a situation very similar to that described in the innovator's dilema, in this case the disruptive factor is not so much a change in technology (although broadband could be argued as such) as a change in the user base.
Companies like AOL and Kodak can probably run profitably for quite a few more years. But if they cannot find a replacement for their core product they will go the way of Polaroid. Yes Kodak will continue to sell lots of celluloid film for ten years or more, but every person who buys a digital camera represents a shrinking of their market. The 35mm format will not die, people still buy medium and large format cameras even today. But Kodak's business depends on selling through the ammusement park kiosk.
AOL has a more severe problem, their product depends on network effects. As their customer base shrinks so does the desirability of the product.

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Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:32 · Score: 0

'Resused to collaborate'. Heh. Ask the folks at Time Magazine, six months after they had AOL mail shoved down their gullet. Speaking of getting beat up in the press, how'd you AOLers like that WSJ article? Must have hurt to have had your own divisions go back to Exchange.
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:34 · Score: 0

Sounds like you two should get together. I'd bet there'd be a catfight, followed by some crazy-hot monkey sex.
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:38 · Score: 0

I have to agree with the parent here. TW divisions have never been helpful or easy to work with. It was like the bigwigs got together and assumed that everyone would play nicely, but they wouldn't. I have never seen a more territorial group of close-minded people than the TW people I have dealt with.
Re:Not surprising... by arivanov · 2003-11-13 05:38 · Score: 1

Exactly why would I pay AOL to screw up my broadband connection for me
I guess you are not an analretentive cretinous fuck which does his best to make sure his children never ever get any sexual education. That is the market AOL is fishing in Europe now - the tight parental control one. Providing the parents with the means to spy on their children net access and censor it.
And frankly there is plenty of people who buy it.

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Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Re:Not surprising... by Saganaga · 2003-11-13 07:22 · Score: 1

Um, do you have any kids? Just curious. If you don't, I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you do, you should be ashamed that you are willing to let someone else do your job (sex education) for you.
Re:Not surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 10:26 · Score: 0

Actually, Telekom just increased their investment in T-online. They own about 70% of shares now. However, they will still keep annoying customers that "it's not our fault, it's T-online's" :-)

And no, Deutsche Telekom does not have a monopoly. They are in fact under government regulation (www.regtp.de). However, German customers are very hesitant to switch to other carriers, so they still have a very dominant market share (including me as a customer, though I prefer O2's cell phone service :)

I never had any serious problems with Deutsche Telekom, so there's not much of a reason to switch anyways. Some competitors are worse :)
Re:Not surprising... by coraxo · 2003-11-13 11:08 · Score: 1

Interesting is that Deutsche telekom has one of the biggest debts in europe. How can they even think about something so big as AOL.

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Strc prst skrz krk and vomit! Can help.
Re:Not surprising... by toddestan · 2003-11-13 11:11 · Score: 1

Kodak has adapted quite well to changing technology. They sell digital cameras (including pro-level digital SLRs), online printing services, paper for inkjet printers, the printers themselves, software, and tons of other products that have to do with digital photography. And they still do film, and they will probably do it for a long time, though it will probably be a smaller and smaller division as the years go by. I would hardly expect Kodak to dissappear, unlike AOL or the RIAA.
Re:Not surprising... by Zeinfeld · 2003-11-13 11:35 · Score: 1

Um, do you have any kids? Just curious. If you don't, I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you do, you should be ashamed that you are willing to let someone else do your job (sex education) for you.
My kid is 2.5, exactly what type of sex education do you think is appropriate for that age? Just curious...
Why would I subscribe to AOL just to stop him encountering that type of information?
I do use the parental control freature on my TV, I stop my parents from tuning in to Fox news. I see no reason to have that kind of filth in my house. What do you use your parental control feature for?
I also object to poor'nography. There is far too much poor'nography and far too little good 'nography.

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Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
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Re:Not surprising... by ball-lightning · 2003-11-13 12:41 · Score: 1

Actually, I wouldn't worry about Kodak too much. Not only do they sell digital cameras, but they also are beggining to sell photo printers, paper, etc. I would say that Kodak doesn't have to worry too much. AOL on the other hand, is in trouble. Most of the people I know who used to use AOL have moved on to broadband, and haven't looked back.
Re:Not surprising... by kruczkowski · 2003-11-13 22:11 · Score: 1

I don't know if the T has the funds or not. I know they lost a lot in there German IPO and spent a lot on G3.

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hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5

So.. by rf0 · 2003-11-13 01:01 · Score: 5, Funny

Does that mean they would be called Time Warner Aol T-Online or TWAT for short? :)

Rus

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Cheap UK and US VPS

Re:So.. by BigBadDude · 2003-11-13 01:09 · Score: 1

why not "GoT" ??
Re:So.. by einer · 2003-11-13 01:24 · Score: 1

God I hope that sticks.
Re:So.. by AWhistler · 2003-11-13 01:34 · Score: 1

Actually, I was thinking something different. Instead of America Online, it would be Germany Online. GOLllllllllllllly (in the best Gomer Pyle accent).
Re:So.. by chadm1967 · 2003-11-13 01:34 · Score: 0

Wow! Good one....... :-)
Re:So.. by wo1verin3 · 2003-11-13 02:32 · Score: 2, Funny

I don't care what they call it, as long as they don't have a movie calls: Sie haben Post
Re:So.. by Wun+Hung+Lo · 2003-11-13 02:35 · Score: 0

Or they could change it to adult content and call it T&AOL
Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 05:27 · Score: 0

Deutsche Amerika Online, lol
Re:So.. by dfung · 2003-11-13 18:15 · Score: 1

Deutsche Amerika Online, lol
That's good, but even better is the simpler and cleaner "Amerika Online". OK, how do you say "You've got mail" in German? Babelfish says "Sie haben Post", but it probably says a lot of stupid things in other languages. I for one know that every phrase that is machine-translated to German should start with "Achtung". Danke...
Re:So.. by DemoLiter3 · 2003-11-14 14:11 · Score: 1

Well, "Sie haben Post" is excatly what German version of AOL software babbled.

Offtopic, but this is a related question which still interests me: the button on the Windows task bar says "Start", right? It also says "Start" in German version. It says "Staato" in Japanese version (written in katakana, it's pretty much the same). But why in the world's name, does Russian version says "Pusk" ("Launch"), while there's just the same word "Start" in Russian language, too????

Uh Huh by Talisman · 2003-11-13 01:01 · Score: 3, Funny

"...german ISP T-Online wants to buy AOL..."

I want to buy AOL, too. I just don't have the money for it...

Talisman

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"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel

Re:Uh Huh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:12 · Score: 0

Thats because you put all your money in AOL stock right?
Re:Uh Huh by UnderAttack · 2003-11-13 01:31 · Score: 1

Well, looks like T-Online is getting a bargain. Time Warner paid 106 Billion for AOL. From the articles, T-Online is offering only 1 Billion. At that 10 cents to a dollar, maybe you got enough money ;-) .

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---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
Re:Uh Huh by stud9920 · 2003-11-13 01:55 · Score: 1

I want to buy AOL, too
Me too
Re:Uh Huh by Zapd · 2003-11-13 02:27 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, Me too!!

> > I want to buy AOL, too

> Me too

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The imp hits!
Re:Uh Huh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:35 · Score: 0

Not me too... I am saving all my pennies to buy Microsoft next year
Re:Uh Huh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:38 · Score: 0

Care to recalc that?
Re:Uh Huh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 07:31 · Score: 0

Uh.. thats one cent on the dollar.

Perhaps you need to upgrade 'bc' to a newer (working) version?
Re:Uh Huh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 11:46 · Score: 0
> Yeah, Me too!!
- > > > I want to buy AOL, too
> > Me too
That figgers... I'd like to buy my ISP too.

hacker haven just got larger by UnderAttack · 2003-11-13 01:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

T-Online got probably the most useless abuse department of all major ISPs. I wonder what they will do to AOL? Gut whatever security they got to make it profitable?

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---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec

Re:hacker haven just got larger by DocSnyder · 2003-11-13 01:26 · Score: 2

T-Online got probably the most useless abuse department of all major ISPs. I wonder what they will do to AOL?
Both AOL's and T-Online's abuse departments aren't that bad. If you know some people who work there and inform them directly about abuse, they'll react quickly and correctly.
What's wrong on both ISPs is the way abuse notifications are being handled officially, that is, if you don't know any people there and inform them via official addresses. abuse@aol.net seems to be equivalent with /dev/null - e. g. the German AOL abuse team won't ever see any emails sent to this address, and if they do, it's way too late. abuse@aol.de (which might be useful to reach them directly) doesn't exist, that's why aol.de is listed on rfc-ignorant.org.
T-Online has a slightly different problem. Their Whois records list "abuse@t-ipnet.de" for abuse notifications. A few days or even a week later you'll receive a message by T-IPnet Abuse, telling you that they just forwarded it to T-Online.
/.
DocSnyder.
Re:hacker haven just got larger by realSpiderman · 2003-11-13 02:24 · Score: 1

Last time I forwarded something to abuse@t-online.de it took them only 24 hours to respond. That's pretty good.

There are many other things, that I don't like about t-online, but that's a different story.
Re:hacker haven just got larger by u-238 · 2003-11-13 07:49 · Score: 0

i love how he cited some credible source or example to supoort this claim. i swear to god the moderaters are fucking idiots

Re:Can't Read by Beardydog · 2003-11-13 01:02 · Score: 0

There's a translated link in the article attached tot he word "help".

Why would anyone want to buy AOL? by salmonz · 2003-11-13 01:02 · Score: 1

Why would anyone want to buy AOL after when Time Warner dropped AOL from it's name? I thought it was already a fact that AOL isn't making money.

Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? by tronicum · 2003-11-13 01:42 · Score: 1

T-Online is not making money, too. They dressed up their balance with stock market revaluation.
I doubt that they really want to buy them. They even denied it @heise (german) but this is a usual procedure during a buyout/merger.
If they would buy AOL, the Germany State would own a part of AOL, which I think conflicts with American law (IANAL). T-Online is a subsidiary of German Telekom, which is owned by the the German State (more than 50%).
Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? by AVee · 2003-11-13 01:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why would anyone want to buy AOL after when Time Warner dropped AOL from it's name? I thought it was already a fact that AOL isn't making money.

Well, first off, T-Online sure is making money and this whould be a way of buying a huge amount of customers. T-Online wants to grow and will have a hard time doing so by just attracting new customers, must people are online somewhere allready, so it's either convincing people to switch to T-Online wich will costs loads of marketing money and will require massive infrastructure investments, or buying those customers. The article talks about a price of 1 billion dollar. For 25 million customers plus the infrastrucure to support them plus a very well known brand name this might be a good purchase. Just compare the price of 40 dollar per customer to a 'Switch now, get the first 6 months for free' campain...
Secondly, T-Online has money to burn, so they can afford to take some time to turn it into a profitable company, starting by dumping all personnel that will be 'duplicate' when the two company's merge.
Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:47 · Score: 0

AOL, despite the bad press, throws off over 1 Billion Dollars in free cash flow yearly. It is not a money loser, its a huge cash cow. The losses reported in the press are the result of write-downs in "goodwill". These aren't material losses at all.
Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? by PierceLabs · 2003-11-13 03:49 · Score: 1

Our survey says *engh*

AOL actually makes quite a bit of money. AOLs problem is that they do have a good growth projection meaning that they aren't a good investment as their business model and profits are stagnant. When the advertising market returns, and unfortunately it appears to be returning quickly - AOL will be in the money again.
Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? by Disoculated · 2003-11-13 07:08 · Score: 1

AOL makes craploads of money, it's just not increasing it's revenues (and that's what you want to invest in, a growing company). Last quarter they brought in 2 billion, with an operating income before deprecitaton and amortization of about 330 million. That means that if someone DID buy AOL for a billion, they'd have made it all back in a year.
Toss in that they're about to go after the 10$ a month crowd with their Netscape brand and their new 9.0 client is very popular with the high end crowd, there's no reason to think that they won't make at least a little more money for the next year or so.
Time Warner would have to be idiots to do sell for that little. Hell, the AOL infrastructure is worth far more than a billion.

Already denied... by DarkDust · 2003-11-13 01:07 · Score: 5, Informative

According to Heise online this has already been denied by T-Online (sorry, German only).

Basically, what they are saying in that news article is that some spokesman from T-Online claims buying AOL would be "economical nonsense". But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies. And while T-Online is the biggest online provider of Europe it is largely unknown outside of Europe, thus buying AOL would make sense to some people because T-Online likes to expand and conquer markets outside of Europe.

Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:47 · Score: 0

But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies.
I thought they had a debt of billions because of the UMTS licences?
Re:Already denied... by AKnightCowboy · 2003-11-13 01:57 · Score: 1

Interesting. I was testing my suspicion about odd moderation going on and it seems justified. After this (obviously Godwin-invoking) post, 3 of my other previously high ranking relevent posts from earlier in the week suddenly were randomly moderated down as trolls. Is this an automatic Slashdot "feature" or just some zealot going back through the queue and unleashing his wrath on people speaking unkindly of Nazis? Get over it man, Nazis suck ass.
Re:Already denied... by ahillen · 2003-11-13 02:21 · Score: 1

...unleashing his wrath on people speaking unkindly of Nazis? Get over it man, Nazis suck ass.

Saying that somebody (or some company) acts like a nazi is not "speaking unkindly of nazis", it's "speaking unkindly of this person/company/whatever". Please note there is a difference. Yes, I'm German. No, I didn't moderate any of your posts.
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:36 · Score: 0

sort of proves your point doesn't it?
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:56 · Score: 0

That is not odd moderation.
What you did is basically to insult Germans, and so you were modded down, and someone, maybe someone who felt this hit really close to home, wanted revenge. There's nothing strange about it.
When you start with stupid nazi accusations for no reason, you deserve what you get.
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:13 · Score: 0

is this a confession? you're still a fag even if you didn't do it, your post speaks for itself
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:26 · Score: 0

just some zealot going back through the queue and unleashing his wrath on people speaking unkindly of Nazis?

Or maybe he was upset that you were speaking unkindly of an ISP by saying that they're Nazis, you idiot.

Thanks for letting everyone know that you're a huge troll though. If you think one guy karmabombing you is a big deal, wait until some of the real many-account karma whores drop by to show you what a karmabombing really is. I'm glad those of us who don't browse at -1 will never have to see your ugly face around here anymore.
Re:Already denied... by pmz · 2003-11-13 04:52 · Score: 3, Funny

"expand and conquer"

Those Germans really need a new business model.

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Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Re:Already denied... by DarkDust · 2003-11-13 05:12 · Score: 1

> But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies. I thought they had a debt of billions because of the UMTS licences?

No, that was the german Telecom or whatever name they're now using. T-Online is a child of the german Telecom and to some degree independent... at least on the paper ;-)

T-Online is an ISP, and most hackers I know avoid it like the devil avoids holy water. But the majority of normal Germans use T-Online. T-Online is to Germany what AOL once was for America: a large source of stupidity on the Internet (see the Jargon Files, entry The September That Never Ended).
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 05:52 · Score: 0

The founder's father was probably a high ranking SS Officer in Hitler's personal guard.

Deutsche Telekom was founded as part of Deutsche Post, and was state-run until privatized some 10 years ago or something.

In the last couple of years it was lead by Ron Sommer, who was born in Israel and is, well ... a jew. This might explain why on the one hand DT gained near-absolute monopoly in the telecom sector in Germany, and also a presence in Europe and worldwide, on the other hand it almost went bankrupt about a year ago, with over 60 billions euro in debts. The stock fell from 140 to 10 euro per share, causing major piss-off.Ron Sommer was fired (taking 10 million euro in compensations with him) and since then DT tried to stabilize its situation.
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 06:25 · Score: 0

you mean something like : "isolate, destroy, conquer, rebuild" ?
Re:Already denied... by pmz · 2003-11-13 06:39 · Score: 1

That's just the same thing in four words and without the Nazi taint.

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Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Re:Already denied... by cdemon6 · 2003-11-13 06:46 · Score: 1

I have to disagree.

Even though T-Online does not have the best image ever (due to the bad image of the german Telekom which was property of the country and thus a big, slow giant), but technically they are way above the market standards in germany.

Also, they made DSL available to almost everybody in germany for a price of 40 Euro (~40 Dollars) mothly inkluding a 128/768 kbit flatrate shortly after analog/ISDN flatrates massively failed here.

This was a huge step forward in my opinion and deserves some credit. Also, the service is imho a lot better (= faster) than that of the competitors (1&1 for example). Most cheap flatrates cost about
5-10 Euro less that 40 Euro, but I don't switch because of the line and ping quaility.

Some competitors even limit your edonkey-usage to a certain bandwith, do not allow you to set up a lan, do not support fastpath etc. etc.

Next point: There is a client like AOL has got one, but you are *not* forced to use it.

Even though everybody (inkluding myself) here in germany likes telekom/t-online bashing they are really not that bad, especially for a market leader.
Re:Already denied... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 14:31 · Score: 0

"Fag" as an insult is so last year.
Re:Already denied... by yourmom16 · 2003-11-13 16:45 · Score: 1

Not if that somebody is SCO. Not even the Nazis deserve to be compared to SCO.

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"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park

Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · 2003-11-13 01:07 · Score: 4, Funny

Sie haben Post (You've got mail)

Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by 4of12 · 2003-11-13 01:43 · Score: 1, Funny

Ja, und wie sagt man "spam" auf Deutsch?

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"Provided by the management for your protection."
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by TiggsPanther · 2003-11-13 01:55 · Score: 0

"Spam", naturlich.*

Aber, ist das mit Der, Die oder Das?

Tiggs

(* Well, that's my guess anyway. Some 'net-culture words seem to be international)

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Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by Stephen+Maturin · 2003-11-13 02:04 · Score: 1, Funny

mit "DIE"... "DIE SPAM, DIE"

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Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
-- Cicero
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by Library+Spoff · 2003-11-13 02:10 · Score: 0

no passwords to logon just
"Do you haff your papers?"

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Acid House saves Souls
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by High+Hat · 2003-11-13 02:56 · Score: 1

Ieh -Mull!
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by Sique · 2003-11-13 04:30 · Score: 1

Ieh -Mull!

No. Mull is the white stuff you have in your first aid package to cover wounds sterilly. The actual word is Muell.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... by kjd · 2003-11-13 12:03 · Score: 1

My copy of AOL 2.5 Germany from 1996-1997 said "du hast post!".

AOL not to be purchased by T-Online by yuggoth · 2003-11-13 01:07 · Score: 0, Redundant

See http://heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-13.11.03-006/ (in german, use the fish).

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Cthulhu fhtagn!

German AOL's Creation by ogiller · 2003-11-13 01:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

I remember when AOL started its German division it was a joint venture (50/50) with Bertelsmann (Who also bought Napster). I wonder if they are buying the whole thing or just a portion?

Re:Can't Read by !the!bad!fish! · 2003-11-13 01:10 · Score: 1

In principle go it internally around two columns with the strategy: Once around "inorganic growth", thus adding by additional purchase, on the other hand around being waiting the consolidation tendencies: There probably separate in or others from alone from the market.

Much as I am sad to agree, the translation is not entirely helpful.

--
Kids today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates 400 BC

Incredible by arvindn · 2003-11-13 01:10 · Score: 3, Funny

They're thinking of a purchase price of a mere $ 1 billion. That's less than a hundredth of what Time warner acquired them for 2 years ago!

Re:Incredible by Scarblac · 2003-11-13 01:16 · Score: 1

I'm rather clueless about these things, but wasn't it AOL who acquired Time Warner back then?

--
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Re:Incredible by pipingguy · 2003-11-13 01:28 · Score: 1

They're thinking of a purchase price of a mere $ 1 billion. That's less than a hundredth of what Time warner acquired them for 2 years ago!

Why the surprise? AOL served its purpose by getting hundreds of millions of people online and aware of the internet. It is a dead duck and many people have made tons of money.
Re:Incredible by SmilingBoy · 2003-11-13 01:34 · Score: 1

Yes, that is correct. AOL's market capitalisation at the time of the merger was more than $100B and a bit more than the market cap of Time Warner. Amazing.
Re:Incredible by SmilingBoy · 2003-11-13 01:37 · Score: 1

Sorry for replying to myself. Just after the merger was announced, the market caps were:
AOL: $163.4B
Time Warner: $83.3B
Even more amazing.
Re:Incredible by spacefrog · 2003-11-13 06:19 · Score: 1

No, that's less than a hundredth of what AOL paid for Time-Warner two years ago.

AOL bought Time-Warner, not the other way around.

spam spam spam, yes indeed by real_smiff · 2003-11-13 01:18 · Score: 1

thanks for bringing this up, 'cos i was about to (OT or not?).

I get so much spam from (or through) T-Online i've had to block them. So my feelings for this company are negative, to put it politely. You've actually tried to contact them eh?

--

This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.

The Germans by pubjames · 2003-11-13 01:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

Consider - worlds largest post company - Deutsche Post. The airline that carries the most passengers - Lufthansa. The Germans own a good many of the biggest companies in the auto industry. And Deutsche Telecom (which I believe includes T-Online) is one of the world's largest telecomms.

I think people fail to realise how powerful the German business sector is. If Germany was the same size of the USA, I'm sure it would be the top dog at the moment, not the USA. And now that the European European Union is creating the biggest single global market, Germany should be able to increase it's economy even further as it is at the heart of Europe.

Re:The Germans by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:34 · Score: 0

I don't think the German economy is that strong, it just seems so because they are the largest Western European country by population. Their GDP per capita is somewhere around 25-30K, like most other Western European countries, while the American GDP per capita is closer to 40K.
Re:The Germans by jamesangel · 2003-11-13 01:35 · Score: 1

Yes, but at the same time the German economy is stagnating, struggling to deal with their social welfare systems and the strain of reintegrating the former East Germany.
BBC streamable radio programme on the problems they are having here.
Re:The Germans by th77 · 2003-11-13 01:40 · Score: 0

I think people fail to realise how powerful the German business sector is. If Germany was the same size of the USA, I'm sure it would be the top dog at the moment, not the USA. And now that the European European Union is creating the biggest single global market, Germany should be able to increase it's economy even further as it is at the heart of Europe.
<Mr. Burns>Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me! Don't let the Germans come after me... Oh no, the Germans are coming after me... No! They're so big and strong! Oh, protect me from the Germans!...</Mr. Burns>

--
Your favorite sig sucks
Re:The Germans by dfeist · 2003-11-13 01:43 · Score: 1

Why are big companies an indicator for a strong economy? I think small ones are much better, more efficient, although politicians and business people deny that. And the German economy is not very strong.

--
Unix makes easy tasks hard and hard tasks possible. Windows makes easy tasks easy and hard tasks $29.95.
Re:The Germans by uradu · 2003-11-13 01:43 · Score: 1

Burns: Smithers, take my hand and slap them!
Re:The Germans by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:51 · Score: 0

Kenneth Rogoff, IMF: "Overall, though the worst may be now over, the short-term economic outlook appears quite weak ... Both domestic and external weaknesses appear particularly acute in Germany."

You can read some more here:
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/w ed/bp/Q imf-europe-eurozone.RUkB_DSI.html

No need to worry about German world domination. It has a strong export economy but it's cheaper to produce eg in Poland. I guess there will be much money leaving the country.
Re:The Germans by mseeger · 2003-11-13 01:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Hi,
One problem with these figures is the exchange rate between Euro and the US$. 18 months ago, when one Euro was 0.86 US$, your figures were "correct".
Nowadays one Euro is woth about 1.15 US$. Suddenly the GDP measured in US$ per capita jumped up nearly 30%. So did germany close the gap while being in recession? No!
Another problem about the GDP is that the US (AFAIK) gives it an uplift due to the quality increase. This isn't done in Europe.
Regards, Martin
P.S. Let's not play "my ecconomy is bigger than yours". For my part, there are a lot of things, i think the US is doing better. But there are a lot of things too, i consider worse.
Re:The Germans by uradu · 2003-11-13 01:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

True, but then again the British national hobby IS to put down the Germans at every opportunity. If you read The Economist regularly, when reporting on the German economy, if they left out the name of the country you'd get the impression they're talking about some inconsequential two-bit Third World country. Don't get me wrong, no one is harder on themselves than the Germans (just read Der Spiegel and you want to slash your wrists over all the doom and gloom), but it's kind of ironic that the ones pointing their fingers the most are those with their own fair share of problems.

So Britain went for the quick fix short term gains by throwing pretty much their entire social net out the window in the image of their masters across the pond. The Germans OTOH in their typical stubbornness and reluctance to change cling on to their economic model from the '80s, leading to respective blips and dips in the growth charts. Still, they're aware that change is required. I'd say wait another ten years before gloating. The '90s are hardly a solid economic barometer, lots of wanky business went on there (ahem, AOL?!). Besides, sooner or later the outrageous British defence spending is going to come home to roost. I'd say in the not-too-distant future "Operation Freedom" will show up as a big fat dip in the British bottom line, and some politicians will get a fair spanking.
Re:The Germans by perly-king-69 · 2003-11-13 02:04 · Score: 1

...but then again the British national hobby IS to put down the Germans at every opportunity

Hey, don't give out the impression that the Germans are somehow an especially deserving case.

Don't forget the French, Italians, Americans, Australians, Spanish, Irish.

--
--
This sig is inoffensive.
Re:The Germans by azzy · 2003-11-13 02:11 · Score: 2, Funny

Wrong. National hobby is to put down the French. And we're not that dissimilar to the Germans. Their national hobby is to invade the French.
Re:The Germans by uradu · 2003-11-13 02:19 · Score: 1

> And we're not that dissimilar to the Germans.

Well, I guess familiarity breeds contempt.

> Their national hobby is to invade the French.

Hey, just because it happened three times in the last 150 years...
Re:The Germans by Lars+T. · 2003-11-13 02:27 · Score: 1

You do know that GDP is the equivalent of MIPS?

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:The Germans by mseeger · 2003-11-13 02:53 · Score: 1

You do know that GDP is the equivalent of MIPS?
Yes, but as it is with all benchmarks: everyone is cheating ;-).
Regards, Martin
Re:The Germans by giminy · 2003-11-13 02:56 · Score: 1

Germany has some huge problems that it's dealing with, though. Unemployment is high, and their current social welfare system gives little incentive for people to go to work. Plus, with over 10% of the workforce unemployed, I would hardly the economy "strong"...

As my old advisor (in Germany) told me, he could not find anyone to work on his horse farm because almost all unemployed people he could find were paid more to sit at home on the couch than he could afford to pay at his part-time positions. The tax codes didn't provide enough incentive for him to hire. I think the Germans would be in much better shape if they cut that social service, but it is something that the citizenry finds very hard to give up (and how can you blame them?).

Still, once they get the social welfare system straightened out, they will be poised to dominate the business world...

--
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Re:The Germans by jesco · 2003-11-13 02:59 · Score: 1

> One problem with these figures is the exchange
> rate between Euro and the US$. 18 months ago, when
> one Euro was 0.86 US$, your figures were
> "correct".
>
> Nowadays one Euro is woth about 1.15 US$. Suddenly
> the GDP measured in US$ per capita jumped up
> nearly 30%. So did germany close the gap while
> being in recession? No!

The german economy is nowhere near being in a good state. It's the middle and small-sized companies that struggle a lot these days.

Your comparison of exchange rates isn't completely correct, though. The Euro started with a rate of 1.18 US-$ (which meant something like 1.60 DM per Dollar, which was a reasonable exchange rate in the 90s). It was the Euro that dropped later and recovered just last year. In my opinion the current GDP numbers reflect reality quite good.
Re:The Germans by ducomputergeek · 2003-11-13 03:14 · Score: 2, Informative

I lived in Germany last year and not all is grand. Unemployement is still overing at a national average of 10% and as high as 20% in some parts of the former east Germany. Their high social program costs are also a problem. I was living in Lueneburg southwest of Hamburg and up until mid december last year, it cost me 10,40 Euro to ride the train round trip with a youth ticket. Then they did away with the youth fare, much to the dismay of all of the students at the Fochhochschule.
The only reason that Germany has maintained its manufacturing sector is through the use of technology and robotics. Otherwise, the cost of labor would be prohibitive. Same reason why Japan and German companies have car factories in the United States, we're their Mexico so to speak because its cheaper here in the United States.
Also, Voicestream (now T-Mobile) here in the United States has been nothing but a loser for the telecom giant. But that's okay because of the German 15-year outlook in business. American businesses, as a result of our finicial markets, are too focused on next quarter results. Let's say a company spends a large amount on R&D or marketing that will not see results for months if not even years and looses a bunch of money for a few quarters, the CEO is at a high risk of being fired. That is why many choose to cut R&D and marketing. The first move will shoot themselves in the foot, often not apparent for a number of years, the other might hurt them if they were spending more than was necessary on marketing, which is easy to do. Even as a small business owner, a $5000 marketing budget can go rather quickly for a quarter. However, with a 15 year goal of x, if there are some off years to reach that goal, its not a big of a deal.

--
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Re:The Germans by tsangc · 2003-11-13 03:45 · Score: 2, Funny

Here's your obligatory Simpsons quote:

Burns plays hardball, managing to repurchase the plant for only $50 million.
The Germans reluctantly agree...

Horst: [threatingly] We Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine.
Burns: [recoils in mock horror]
Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans!
[hiding behind Smithers] Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!
Horst: Stop it!
Man 2: Stop, sir.
Burns: Don't let the Germans come after me.
Oh no, the Germans are coming after me.
Man 2: Please stop the `pretending you are scared' game, please.
Horst: Stop it! Stop it!
Burns: [brief pause, then resumes]
No! They're so big and strong!
Man 2: Stop it.
Horst: Stop it, Mr. Burns.
Man 2: Please stop pretending you are scared of us, please, now.
Burns: Oh, protect me from the Germans! The Germans...
Horst: Burns, STOP IT!
Re:The Germans by nutshell42 · 2003-11-13 04:19 · Score: 1

Hey, just because it happened three times in the last 150 years..
Don't forget, two out of that three times the French declared war on us =P

--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Re:The Germans by torpor · 2003-11-13 04:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

I just moved to Germany after a 15-year stint in Southern California.

All I can say is this:

German business is a blatant economic force to be reckoned with, if you're an American business. Germans are hot on your heels in pretty much every sector, and then some...

It is only after actually living here for a while that I've come to sense a value in the characterization of Germans by Americans.

The West is a Wilde place sometimes ...

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:The Germans by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 05:01 · Score: 0

Face it dude.
$37,600 in US vs $26,600 in Germany does mean something.

It is definitely more meaningful than some politically motivated UN style "standard of living" bullshit.
Re:The Germans by atomly · 2003-11-13 06:00 · Score: 1

Consider - worlds largest post company - Deutsche Post. The airline that carries the most passengers - Lufthansa. The Germans own a good many of the biggest companies in the auto industry. And Deutsche Telecom (which I believe includes T-Online) is one of the world's largest telecomms.

What constitutes largst "post" company? Larger than FedEx or UPS, or do those not count? Also, I believe UAL (a partner of Lufthansa), American and Delta are all bigger than Lufthansa. BA is also a large airline and the new Air France/KLM merger will definitely create a mammoth airline. The largest ever airline, though, by far, was Aeroloft, before the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Deutsche Telecom is definitely a huge company (and they even own a large share of the American cell phone market) and don't forget Deutsche Bank, also huge.

I think people fail to realise how powerful the German business sector is. If Germany was the same size of the USA, I'm sure it would be the top dog at the moment, not the USA.

Well, that's a rather twisted form of reasoning. If California were the size of the entire US, it'd be BY FAR the largest economy in the world, but things don't really scale like that (much like an ant can lift four times its own weight but couldn't do the same if it were the size of a human. muscle mass increases at a rate of x^2 while everything else increases at a rate of x^3)

And now that the European European Union is creating the biggest single global market, Germany should be able to increase it's economy even further as it is at the heart of Europe.

Well, that may be true until the FTAA comes into existence, which is a scary proposition to say the least.

--
-- atomly :: atomly(at)atomly(dot)com :: http://www.atomly.com/
Re:The Germans by uradu · 2003-11-13 08:22 · Score: 1

> $37,600 in US vs $26,600 in Germany does mean something.

No, it doesn't. Once you remove the few percent of top earners in the US from the calculations, the figures look very different. The US has much more peaks at the top end than Germany, which inflates simple per-capita income. Face it, Bill Gates' or Warren Buffett's income doesn't benefit you personally one bit--you neither travel more nor have more leisure time because of it. There are figures available that normalize the data in various ways.

There are also other things that skew the figures. An interesting article on the topic appeared in The Economist ealier this year. But since it's premium content now, I've googled for it and found a copy elsewhere.
Re:The Germans by uradu · 2003-11-13 08:41 · Score: 1

> What constitutes largst "post" company?
> Larger than FedEx or UPS, or do those not count?

It appears so, except for the US market. Can't find any figures right now (naturally, when you're looking for them), but I've read various articles similar to this that refer to Deutsche Post having the largest marketshare worldwide. In the US you see them as DHL, which is pretty low profile, but standing to gain some ground after the Airborne purchase.
Re:The Germans by w42w42 · 2003-11-13 09:13 · Score: 1

I like your first question. Daimler-Chrysler is a great German/American example I think of why mergers do not work, and larger companies are not that great. An inability to focus, and management by ego. Look at three of the most successful auto companies in the world right now, BMW, Honda, and Toyota. Each has gone their own way, refusing to lose focus by consuming or being consumed by other manufacturers. Two of the three seem to be constantly derided, well at least as of a few years ago, as being too small to keep up with newer technologies. They've proved the critics very wrong.

Please release IM, let IM go... by markxsd · 2003-11-13 01:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Surely 80% of the Instant Messaging market is the only asset AOL have that's worth anything to anyone?? Apart from that, what else is there? Millions of Joe 6 DDoS drones... Netscape seems to have been abandoned, it's worth nothing now, if it was ever worth anything in the first place...

If this is more than an American Dream, let's hope that an outcome will be that AOL will loosen their grip on the IM market. The closed model they've been trying to enforce has been holding back a world of possibilities for Jabber and IM client development.

Re:Please release IM, let IM go... by fault0 · 2003-11-13 02:49 · Score: 1

> Surely 80% of the Instant Messaging market is the only asset AOL have that's worth anything to anyone?

Actually, by most recent estimates, there are more users on MSN than AIM these days. Perhaps it was Windows Messanger being integrated into XP.
Re:Please release IM, let IM go... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:56 · Score: 0

Why would AOL open up an instant messanging infrastructure to third party clients that they've invested hundreds on millions of dollars building? What value proposition do the third party clients present them? If these client proposed a viable business case to integrate, I can see something happening but otherwise, it makes no sense for AOL to do so. When Jabber et al bring something to the table of value, I would expect integration would happen quickly.
Re:Please release IM, let IM go... by radish · 2003-11-13 03:12 · Score: 1

Don't they still own Nullsoft (i.e. Winamp)? Even though it's free, that's quite some market share they got there.

--
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Re:Please release IM, let IM go... by hetairoi · 2003-11-13 04:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

what else is there?

oh, I don't know, maybe tens of millions of people paying $23.95/month for internet service, a large userbase with disposable cash to advertise to, and a nearly ubiquitous brand name?

Sure, AOL is starting to crumble and the TimeWarner merger turned out badly, but there is still a huge amount of possiblity for AOL. Given the right management and strategy.

--
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
Re:Please release IM, let IM go... by Com2Kid · 2003-11-13 05:43 · Score: 1
- Actually, by most recent estimates, there are more users on MSN than AIM these days. Perhaps it was Windows Messanger being integrated into XP.
Larger customer base? Yes. Online users? Nah.
--
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Re:Please release IM, let IM go... by Echnin · 2003-11-13 06:37 · Score: 1

Winamp 5 is supposed to have a Pro version which costs money.
Quick source.

--
Lalala

Funniest "fish" error ever by SuperBanana · 2003-11-13 01:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

The german newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports on its website, that the german ISP T-Online wants to buy AOL.[snip] Ask the fish for help."

Running AOL's profit/loss statements and investor reports through The Fish are about the only thing that could explain someone actually -wanting- AOL right now...

About the only thing I've ever found The Fish useful for was once confusing the crap out of a friend visiting Italy by making her think I 'spoke' formal Italian. That was good for a few days before another friend spoiled it and told her...

--
Please help metamoderate.

Re:Heil--hail--the Wehrmacht, I mean the Bundesweh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:22 · Score: 0

Does this mean the little yellow guy will be sporting an Adolf on his upper lip? Not that he has lips....

Why should he? So far he didn't look like George W. Bush either...

Hello? by Noryungi · 2003-11-13 01:25 · Score: 1

If I remember correctly, T-Online is owned by Deutsche Telekom ( Some financial info here).

While T-Online is profitable, Deutsche Telekom is not... I wonder (a) if T-Online has enough cash to buy AOL and (b) if European Authorities won't try to block this operation, given the size of the two companies...

Of course, if there are German Slashdot readers who have better info, I am ready to stand corrected!

--
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)

Re:Hello? by ponxx · 2003-11-13 01:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

T-online is a publicly traded company that was spun off from Deutsche Telekom. ~80% of the shares are still owned by Deutsche Telekom. The article claims T-online has 4 Bn. Euros in cash reserves, which would be more than enough to buy AOL.

I'm not sure the European authorities would block the deal as T-online so far is almost completely restricted to activity in Germany while AOL has very few customers there, so a merger would not change the diversity in any market significantly... but it's still a big risk...
Re:Hello? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:40 · Score: 0

This http://heise.de/newsticker/data/tol-13.11.03-000/ (german only) tells us that Deutsche Telekom is doing better than expected with its new CEO Ricke. The reduction of debts intented for this year was already reached at the end of september.
Re:Hello? by ahillen · 2003-11-13 01:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

f I remember correctly, T-Online is owned by Deutsche Telekom

Right. ;)

While T-Online is profitable, Deutsche Telekom is not...

Wrong. Deutsche Telekom [which has the 4 divisions T-Online (Internet), T-Mobile (cell phone service), T-Com (fixed line service, basically the German fixed line network), and T-Systems (something like extended IT services)] is quite profitable right now. They still have huge amount of depths though from the times they purchased expensive 3G UMTS licenses and bought Voicestream for a huge load of money. But they are strongly reducing that depths, and the company is profitable. Actually, the just released their financial statement for the first 9 months of this year today (www.telekom3.de/en-p/inve/2-bu/cont/2003/thir/031 113-report-two-ar.html)
Re:Hello? by ahillen · 2003-11-13 02:02 · Score: 1

OK, to correct myself, T-Online is (as somebody else pointed out) only about 75% owned by Deutsche Telekom, the rest is publically traded...

Oh, and here is the link in the proper way. ;)
Re:Hello? by JamesKPolk · 2003-11-13 18:27 · Score: 1

The EU Commission won't stop it, they're too busy sticking it to the Americans^W^W^W^Wsuing Microsoft.

english translation by ponxx · 2003-11-13 01:26 · Score: 5, Informative

by yours truly... in a rush so don't complain if it's not 100% accurate (apologies for the dodgy english as well):

"American Dream"

T-online has lots of money and high ambitions, one option is the take-over of AOL

For years it was a duel that electrified the internet public. Deutsche Telekom with T-online vs. the conqueror from the US: AOL.

The opponents used all means to fight for markets in europe, including law-suits, dumping prices and advertising campaigns. A Particular twist was added when the (german) media company Bertelsman headed by Thomas Middelhoff, worked together with the Americans.

Today, all has changed. Since Spring 2000 Bertelsmann is not involved with AOL anymore and Middelhoff is a partner with Investcorp in London.

He searches for investment opportunities in the entire world and has particularly good contacts to the US, where he is on the board of the NYT. From the deals of the 90s he still knows many people at Time Warner, who euphorically bought AOL 4 years ago but is now unhappy with the online-business.

Time Warner already dropped AOL from the name and are apparently thinking of seeling large parts of the company. The most likely candidate is according to sources of the SZ the T-online AG who has been striving for international expansion for a while, but not achieved its aims in this area.

One idea is for the germans to hold 80% of AOL shares while 30% stay with Time Warner, a cooperation that would change the media-landscape. It would happen due to the deal-making of Middelhoff.

It is the old Bertelsmann Boss and now Investment banker who has aided the talks between T-online and Time-Warner. Information from T-online sources suggest that a meeting between TW boss Richard PArsons and T-online Boss Thomas Holtrop has already occured.

The suggested price-tag is ~1 Bn Dollars. That's a long way away from the former astronomical valuations of the company once promoted by Middelhoff friend Steve Case.

At it's maximum AOL bought Time Warner for 112 Bn Dollar. Recently AOL lost customers, currently there are about 25 Million.

It woudl be easy for Holtorp and Col to pay for the deal. T-online still has 4 Bn Euros. This capital needs a targe so that publicly traded T-online corp can achieve its ambitious growth targets.

Middelhoff was not available for comment. A t-online spokes-person didn't want to commen on the rumours: "Every quarter we're asked "What are you doing with your money?"

Fundamentally there are two major parts of strategy. One is inorganic growth, by purchases and by waiting on consolidation of the market,.

A deal with AOL would have the particular advantage that T-online would get a foot-hold in the american market. Co-operations with sister-firm T-mobile are important as the companies work together on "T-Zones" where T-online supplise contents, which could be important for the US investments of T-mobile.

The Project AOL is top secret. A final decision has not been made. There are risks, in particular in terms of regulators. In Germany AOL never made major inroads. It is likely that after a merger AOL germany would disappear.

On Tuesday T-online has declared a quarterly profit for the first time. T-online now has 12.9 Mn customers, 9% more than last year. 4/5 of these live in Germany, so it's time for a jump. Yes, t-online is on the look-out says Holtrop, and it would not be years until he has something to announce...

Re:english translation by FoxMcCloud · 2003-11-13 01:57 · Score: 1

One idea is for the germans to hold 80% of AOL shares while 30% stay with Time Warner, a cooperation that would change the media-landscape.
Now that's an interesting translation ;-)

Anyway, the original article said 70% for germans and 30% for Time Warner.
Not that it really matters since it seems the buyout has already been denied.
Still, thanks for translating :-)

--
bool Marketoid::IsGood(){return IsDead();}
Re:english translation by rytier · 2003-11-13 03:41 · Score: 1

One idea is for the germans to hold 80% of AOL shares while 30% stay with Time Warner, a cooperation that would change the media-landscape. It would happen due to the deal-making of Middelhoff.

I guess that would change the landscape of math as well ;-)

my own bit of the story: Deutsche telekom has stakes in many Telco companies, some of them still not quite unregulated (e.g. Slovak Telecom).. so the money flows in :)

--
--- Naive inside, foolish outside...:)
Re:english translation by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:48 · Score: 0

Much better now... Maybe you could teach the fish a thing or two
Re:english translation by Wolfrider · 2003-11-13 18:26 · Score: 1

--Yah, I heard that Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom are involved somewhere... Look at how well they did with their play! ;-)

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??

lairIE/robbIE's whoreabully infactdead PostBlock by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:27 · Score: 0

(tm) devise, fails again/yet another phonIE storIE?

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily (permanenNTly, if we could figure out how to do it) been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down, & rat them out, like with the softwar gangsters' phonIE ?pr? ?firm? bouNTy hunter scam. If you think this is unfair, we don't care.

the creators' ppr/ncp initiatives are not speculative rumours. in any language, the intentions/results will be identical. see you there? tell 'em robbIE?

Nein noch nicht by segment · 2003-11-13 01:29 · Score: 1

As if Bush and Wolfowitz wouldn't declare war on Germany... pfft ;)

Would be neat though to see that annoying little yellow man get replaced with a volks... Wait those beetles are just as annoying. Mercedes? Ok so we could turn the little man into a gangster with a gold chain emblem around his neck and have the rappers chip in on this...

Commercial with Master P scene one
ehhhhhhhhhh

Nope wouldn't cut it... Snoop?
foshizzlemahnizzleyougotsmailbizzle

Hrmm nah... JayZ?
A to the izzO...

Damnit all we have left are the Germans I guess considering the alternatives here. I say let them take it, and let me know when and where I could send these 32,450,987,123,451 AOL 8.0 cd's to.

--
MoFscker

Re:Nein noch nicht by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:34 · Score: 0

Keep your nigger hiphop fantasies to yourself.

They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) by Qbertino · 2003-11-13 01:32 · Score: 4, Funny

AOL got security? What's that? An inhouse media player replacement?

Honestly, when it comes to security or any other area that requires basic brain function I'd say the big ISPs are a all the same: Utterly useless.

It's countless times I've called the T-Online Hotline, asked if their mail server was down or the TDSL dialin node was down or some other informal question and every time I've gotten something like this:

Blockhead:"What's your error message?"

Me:"I don't think my error messages are of any use to you."

Blockhead:"What Mailer do you use?"

Me:"*SIGH* K-Mail."

Blockhead:"We only support Outlook or Netscape."

[Meanwhile down in Hell: Satan marks up another Eternity Candidate]

Me:"I know.(I'm not gonna explain to him that E-Mail is a Service while Outlook and Netscape are Mailers and what that all means) I actually just wanted to know if you Mailserver is down."

Blockhead: "What Windows do you use?"

Me: "I use Linux."

Blockhead: "Oh. Well, we don't support Linux." (NOTE THE SIGNIFICANCE: We're in Germany, so he's actually heard the word 'Linux' before)

[Back in Hell: Satan marks Mr. Blockhead up for extra special skinning, boiling and chainsaw subdividing treatment upon arrival.]

Me: "I know.(I'm certainly NOT gonna explain the difference between an Internet Service and an OS to him) I just wanted to know if you Mailserver is down... Could I speak to second level please?"

Blockhead: "Well, all I can say is that due to our troubletickets the Mailserver is up and running and second level won't tell you anything different."

Me: "Thank you very much".

*KLICK* *Duuuuu* (german dialtone)

I seriously doubt it is _any_ better with AOL right now.

--
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca

Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) by Shakrai · 2003-11-13 03:29 · Score: 3, Funny

Hahahahaha, I used to go though that with my old dialup ISP after the local teleco bought them out. They had messed up DNS configurations (A records for the IPs but no PTRs) that made using ssh and irc (amoung other things) range from a general pain in the ass to nearly impossible.
Have you ever tried to explain to a Level 1 tech how DNS works? "Sorry, we don't support IRC or Linux sir.". After a couple of weeks yelling at them I finally got to talk to the manager of the tech. support ppl and get a name of the head tech guy at corporate to complain to.
Called him up and explained the principal of correctly configured DNS. Problem was fixed two days after that. I no longer use Frontier at home, but my company has a commercial DSL line with them in one of our satellite offices. That can be a fun call to Level 1 too...
Me: Is your DSL in Whitney Point down?
Blockhead: What lights on your router are on?
Me: I don't know, I'm not in that office. Just tell me, is the service down or not?
Blockhead: What OS are you running?
Me: (sighing) Linux, we run a VPN setup
Blockhead: We don't support that.
Me: Actually yes, according to your sales people, you _do_ support VPNs. All I need to know is if the service is down and when it is expected to come back up.
Blockhead: Sir, we don't support non-standard operating systems.
Me: Do you support ICMP Pings? Because I can't ping my box. Is the connection down or not?
Blockhead: I don't know what that is. What lights are on your router?
Me: Let me talk to your supervisor please.
I'm also famous for calling in and demanding a supervisor right off the bat...
Blockhead: Thank you for calling [insert company name here] support, my name is Steve, how may I help you?
Me: Let me talk to a supervisor please.
Blockhead: Sir I can help you.
Me: Steve, you don't want to help me. Let me talk to your supervisor please.
Blockhead: No, sir I can help you.
Me: Ok you asked for it... [begin running explanation of how to maintain an ISP with decent uptimes, explain my experience in the ISP business and the uptimes we managed when I was running things, explain how much money my company pays for this connection, which currently appears to be down, regardless of what lights on my router are currently on, off or blinking]
Blockhead: Let me get my supervisor for you sir....
Ah, sometimes I actually take a twisted form of pleasure in it ;) How sad is that?

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:08 · Score: 0

I don't mean to pick on you, but when they ask what you're running, humor them and say "Windows XP".

You may have to humor them by "pretending" to rebooot windows, and calling back in an hour after you've claimed to have reinstalled (they always ask Windows users to do that) before they will actually check to see if their hardware is down.

I do this every time I call my DSL provider. It just makes it faster for both of us.
Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) by Shakrai · 2003-11-13 05:31 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't mean to pick on you, but when they ask what you're running, humor them and say "Windows XP".
It's the principal of having to jump though hoops to report an outage on a commercial-grade account that my company pays several hundred dollars a month for. I do feel bad for the Level 1 techs themselves (I used to be one), but not the company that hires them.
I had a similar problem with a Verizon ISDN circuit once. My router (Cisco 776) was reporting an error of "Error 3 - no Route" every time it tried to dial. The idiot that I spoke to told me "We'll send someone out to test the line, but if there aren't any problems, we are going to charge you".
They dispatched someone who did loopback tests and pronounced the line clean and functional. I told them I would try a spare router (another 776) the next day and see if it worked or not -- I wasn't discounting that it could be our equipment, even though I doubted it. No shock, the spare router had the same error message.
They then proceeded to tell me it was my configuration and they didn't support my router (they'd be too happy to support it for $75/hr). I told them this was bullshit -- said configuration had worked fine for years, and wasn't changed prior to the router not working.
This went back and fourth for the next two days (at one point they even claimed that they LOST my ticket and all the notes attached to it) before (after yelling at nearly every person I talked to -- every shread of patience I had was gone at this point) I got a co tech on the line who worked with me on solving the problem (she had me initiating ISDN calls to various numbers while she traced them). Turns out, somebody changed the reroot order in one of their tadem switches (? that means nothing to me, but I'm not a telco weenie) and that caused the calls to disappear into the ether. Why they didn't make this connection earlier is beyond me. If one of my setups stops working the first thing I do is look at anything that has been changed over the last couple of days....
By this point it had been down for 72 hours. I had three different tickets open on this issue before I finally got the knowledgeable CO Tech on the phone. She was helpful and actually knew what she was talking about. Every other idiot told me the problem was on "my end", accused me of "not knowing how to configure your own equipment", (my retort to that being "I guess Cisco's CCNP certification is overrated then"), and "We'll fix it, but it'll cost $75/hr." Three weeks after this problem was solved we received an invoice for the initial visit that did not solve or even diagnosis the problem. Needless to say, we did not pay said invoice...
It's even more amusing to me that the little Mom & Pop ISP I worked for could go three years without a major outage (the outage that did occur was due to a car hitting a telephone pole outside of our building -- beyond our control) yet major national ISPs with (for all intents and purposes) infinite resources can't manage the same feat, even for their commercial customers. The situation has stabilized somewhat now, but initially the DSL account in question would go down at least once every two weeks for half an hour or so. And that doesn't count the little 30 second "hiccups" that occurred from time to time.
I did eventually speak with the manager of the tech support and got a satisfactory answer out of him -- too few techs employed for the number of calls, company refusing to give out another contact number for non-tech support problems, stressed out customers blaming his people, etc etc. We had quite the mutual rant session for awhile.
Bottom line: I understand outages occur and they are beyond the control of the avg guy at tech support. Just don't read to me from your sheet about router lights and operating systems when you have a known outage on your screen and an estimated time of repair for said outage. If you do, I'm going to rip you a new one, and rip your supervisor a

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) by Rick+Zeman · 2003-11-13 09:32 · Score: 1

It's even more amusing to me that the little Mom & Pop ISP I worked for could go three years without a major outage (the outage that did occur was due to a car hitting a telephone pole outside of our building -- beyond our control) yet major national ISPs with (for all intents and purposes) infinite resources can't manage the same feat, even for their commercial customers.

You sound like you could be living in Maryland....
Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) by Shakrai · 2003-11-13 09:46 · Score: 1

You sound like you could be living in Maryland....
Naw, upstate New York. Some drunk guy hit the telephone pole directly outside our building -- literally ripped both the telco and electric wires off the building. We had a generator backup for the electric, but not much we could do about the T1s and the 400 dialup lines being ripped off the building ;)
They had us back up and running in about two hours. Not too shabby for the local telco imho -- esp since those 400 dialup lines were just that... 400 analog lines... 400 pairs. Ah the days before T1 trunk lines and v.90 :)

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.

T-Online related to T-Mobile? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 01:44 · Score: 1

Does anyone know if these companies (T-Online and T-Mobile) are related? I ask because they have similar names and the SAME logo, but I can't find anything that says they're the same company.

Re:T-Online related to T-Mobile? by ahillen · 2003-11-13 01:54 · Score: 2, Informative

Does anyone know if these companies (T-Online and T-Mobile) are related?

Yepp. Both companies are part of Deutsche Telekom. (T-Mobile 100%, T-Online 75%).
See the Deutsche Telekom site for more info.

NNNNooooooooo Not *that* jingle! by Space+cowboy · 2003-11-13 01:46 · Score: 3, Funny

T-mobile are the only company in the history of humanity to have a more-annoying jingle to their adverts than intel.

God I hate that jingle.

Simon

--
Physicists get Hadrons!

Re:NNNNooooooooo Not *that* jingle! by taernim · 2003-11-13 02:23 · Score: 1

You obviously somehow forgot the "Big Mac" song from McDonalds. There are /much/ worse jingles that go on and on and on.....

--
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Re:NNNNooooooooo Not *that* jingle! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:05 · Score: 0

Poor Cowboy... did a jingle bite you when you were little?

Are there any jingles that are good?
Re:NNNNooooooooo Not *that* jingle! by unother · 2003-11-13 04:25 · Score: 1

"Chili's... Baby Back Ribs..."

My personal most hated.

Not a big effect by El+Volio · 2003-11-13 01:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

Disclosure: I work for a telecom company with a pretty successful ISP and wireless unit that obviously competes with both T-Mobile and AOL. This is my personal opinion, though, and I don't represent it as being that of my employer.

These two fit together well, if for no other reason than that they're both pretty bad about responding to security complaints. T-Online is notorious as a simultaneous source of scanning/exploit activity and a sink for abuse reports. AOL doesn't fare much better. Also, they'll probably end up keeping the brand name AOL since most of their customers could be easily confused by that sort of switch (most still don't know that Voicestream got bought by T-Mobile). So the sum effect of this would be that another company gets owned by Deutsche Telekom. Works for me: when I tell friends who really owns T-Mobile, more than one has decided they'd like to go with a domestic provider, even if it's not my employer.

My real question is, will Catherine Zeta Jones be in the new commercials? :)

--

"You can never have too many elephants on your team."

Re:Not a big effect by markhb · 2003-11-13 04:12 · Score: 2, Funny

I might actually consider adding an AOL account if it came with a soundbite of Catherine Z-J saying "You've Got Mail"!

--
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Re:Not a big effect by hetairoi · 2003-11-13 04:27 · Score: 1

These two fit together well

Yes they do. A huge ISP and a huge wireless provider. I can already access AIM from my t-mobile phone. The possibilities here are endless, think of all the teeny-boppers with AOL accounts and t-mobile phones.

T-Online is notorious as a simultaneous source of scanning/exploit activity and a sink for abuse reports. AOL doesn't fare much better.

on the scanning part: yeah, and who's not?
on the sink for abuse part: yeah, and who's not?

Seriously, I have the email address of noc@largeUS.ISP and receive large amounts of abuse reports and even some internal emails. I got this address by simply entering it into the webmail form on their home site. I've had it for a couple of years and no one has noticed. Can you imagine the number of abuse/complaint reports they HAVE NEVER EVEN SEEN? If not, I've got a large folder full of email you can have a look at (it's actually quite funny).

when I tell friends who really owns T-Mobile, more than one has decided they'd like to go with a domestic provider

Really, maybe I should start telling all these people driving Maxima's and Altima's who really owns Nissan. Maybe they will buy domestic. I have a T-Mobile phone, it has great service, I have a tremendous plan (plenty of minutes, no long distance or roaming, ever ... ) and I have never had a single problem with it. Maybe their customer service is horrible, I wouldn't know because I've never had to use it. I knew who owned T-Mobile when I purchased the service and I will change it when another provider can offer better features/performance for a better price. Welcome to a global economy.

My real question is, will Catherine Zeta Jones be in the new commercials? :)

For the love of God, NOOOOOOOOO! I don't think I can take anymore of that wench.

All that said, I doubt T-Online will go through with this purchase.

--
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
Re:Not a big effect by kruczkowski · 2003-11-13 22:17 · Score: 1

My freind and I went to a german trade show and the AOL girl was handing out CD TOPLESS. She had body paint on - that's it.

--
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5

Welcome! by iCoach · 2003-11-13 02:08 · Score: 1, Funny

I for one welcome our new German overlords.

-Coach

--
"Never upset a goalie, getting hit with a blocker is an unpleasent experience - facemask or not." -Me

So do the French by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:12 · Score: 0

But they've got a lot more practice!

Yeah.. by jav1231 · 2003-11-13 02:16 · Score: 1

And I want a new Ferrari! It's good to have dreams.
JAV

Socialism silently buying up corporate america? :) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:18 · Score: 1

Heh, if this transaction is completed - 43% of AOL will be owned by the german people (=the german government)! heh. :)

Sooo, if internet usage goes up in the US => the taxes goes down i germany, excelent :)

Reference: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/BUSINESS/11/14/bbtelec oms.dt/

Re:Der Spiegel, mit boobies? by realSpiderman · 2003-11-13 02:32 · Score: 1

You probably mean "Bild". The Spiegel is more like "Time".

Mildly obscure reference of the day by edgezone · 2003-11-13 02:33 · Score: 1

Does this mean AOL will now block lancearmstrong.com? ;)

--
-- If you can't laugh at yourself, someone else will do it for you.

The Register got the story (short).... by DerOle · 2003-11-13 02:38 · Score: 4, Informative

.. in English. See it here

Obligatory Futurama qoute: by Bl4d3 · 2003-11-13 02:56 · Score: 1

Professor: Good news everyone. Several years ago I tried too log on AOL. And it just went through! Weeeeee..... We're online.

So now it will just take a month?

--
40% Funny, 40% Insightful, 40% Informative, 40% Dolomite

Deutschland uber alles! by swb · 2003-11-13 02:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Wow, something I'd never thought I'd see on Slashdot -- shilling for the krauts!

Go get 'em, Werner! Raus! Raus! Mach Schnell!

Q: Why are French roads lined with trees?

A: So the German army can match in the shade!

Re:Deutschland uber alles! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 06:14 · Score: 0

How's that working out for you, being clever?
Not too well, it appears.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote by onthefenceman · 2003-11-13 02:57 · Score: 2, Funny

BURNS: Ooooh! The Germans are mad at me! I'm so scared, the Germans! Oh the Germansare coming after me...

GERMANS: ...Stop it, Mr. Burns!...

--
Have you seen my stapler?

subtle references by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 02:59 · Score: 0

We've got to do something before zee Germans catch up to us!

"European European Union"? Name suggested by Lord Percy Percy, no doubt. Such a cunning plan...

D.Telekom CEO denies T-Online in talks on AOL by saddino · 2003-11-13 03:09 · Score: 4, Informative

So it appears we have an official denial now (as reported by Forbes this morning).

Oh, this should be good.... by KC7GR · 2003-11-13 03:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

T-Online has a big problem with spammer infestations and mucho compromised broadband-connected systems being (ab)used as spammer zombies. I've got large chunks of their IP space blocked locally because of these issues, mostly T-Dialin.net.

In contrast, though I may think AOL is nothing more than training wheels for the real Internet, I see maybe one or two spams a year from them, and the moron responsible quickly disappears once a report is made to AOL abuse.

Given these two obviously contrasting views, I think a buyout is going to be most interesting to watch. I wonder if Steve Case has taught himself German yet?

--

Bruce Lane, KC7GR,

Blue Feather Technologies

Re:Oh, this should be good.... by Indy1 · 2003-11-13 04:49 · Score: 1

i got a huge chunk of their netspace firewalled for spamming too. Fuck em. If i start getting spam from aol netspace, it goes into the firewall too.

--
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!

do everyone a favor by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 03:44 · Score: 0

If I had the money, I'd do the world a favor and by AOL just to shut that damn flaptrap operation down for good.

Re:do everyone a favor by wawannem · 2003-11-13 04:51 · Score: 1

Well, your business savy is probably one reason why you don't have the money ;-)

AOL is good for getting your parents/grandparents online, and no one is forcing you to use it, so I don't see any reason to bash them.

Offtopic:The Germans by WalterSobchak · 2003-11-13 03:44 · Score: 1

>The airline that carries the most passengers - Lufthansa.

As I hold Lufthansa stock I would be happy if it was as you say - but I seriously doubt LH carries the most passengers. Last time I checked the worlds largest airline company was United Airlines. I am happily proven wrong on the point, however.

Alex

--
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

Re:Offtopic:The Germans by Betcour · 2003-11-13 05:20 · Score: 1

With the merger of Air France & KLM, I think Air France KLM would be the biggest now.

T-Mobile already linked with AOL by RobertB-DC · 2003-11-13 03:56 · Score: 1

Deutsche Telekom [which has the 4 divisions T-Online (Internet), T-Mobile (cell phone service), T-Com (fixed line service, basically the German fixed line network), and T-Systems (something like extended IT services)]...

We just signed up for a T-Mobile phone for our daughter -- would you believe they've taken all the pay phones out of the school gym? She's going to be going to Europe on a school trip, and T-Mobile's phones are the only ones compatible with the European standard. Why waste money on phone cards she probably won't use?

Packed with the phone were scads of flyers and brochures touting AOL IM service on her T-Mobile phone. Fortunately, she's smart enough to know how useless such a "service" would be, especially at 5c per text message.

There was such gratuitous use of AOL insignia, I was wondering what was going on. Now it makes more sense...

--
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.

Blame babblefish by mackman · 2003-11-13 04:04 · Score: 3, Funny

The actually story says T-Online is going to buy an AOL account. The 1 billion dollar price tag is a little steep, but that's what happens if you go over your 10,000 free hours in the first month.

You can hear this.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:06 · Score: 0

Welcome. You will read your mail.

thick German accent

A lot of customers by someguy456 · 2003-11-13 04:06 · Score: 1

from http://www.t-online.com/

"With over 11,849 million customers..."

Maybe they *do* have the cash to buy AOL...

(yes, I know that's 18.849 million US)

--
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.

Re:A lot of customers by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 05:12 · Score: 0

How did the second 1 become an 8? Regardless of what we use for a decimal separator, I was under the impression that Arabic numerals are the same everywhere. Go figure.

Deny deny deny by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:27 · Score: 0

It looks like someone made this one up....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid= 58 2&e=1&u=/nm/20031113/wr_nm/tech_aol_tonline_dc

High School German Class memories.. AHhhh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:31 · Score: 0

und denn meine schwanz war gross.

Message from Steve by AndyMouse+GoHard · 2003-11-13 04:35 · Score: 2, Funny

Hi, this is Steve. Why don't you just stop and leave me alone? Is there no end to your torment?

--
Upon seeing the box was too small, Schrodinger's Elephant breathed a sigh of relief.

Re:Message from Steve by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 06:18 · Score: 0

Heeeey, wait... Are you S-T-E-V-E with a van?
Re:Message from Steve by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 09:31 · Score: 0

Hi, this is Steve. Why don't you just stop and leave me alone? Is there no end to your torment?
Sorry man, nothing personal.... really, it's not personal... hey can I talk to your supervisor?

Thanks for the link to AOL in the posting! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:44 · Score: 0

I never would have figured that out myself.

German AOL by MonkeyCookie · 2003-11-13 04:49 · Score: 1

Actually, AOL is present in Germany already, and I believe in the German version of AOL, it says "Email fuer dich" (Email for you).

Re:Can't Read by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:57 · Score: 0

The language is called "German". Blockhead...

Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? CASH! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 04:58 · Score: 0

As much as the TW suits get their greasy-haired PR flacks ro deny it, AOL is HUGELY profitable. Do the math:

35 million member @ 23.90 / month = $836,500,000

That's almost a billion dollars a month, cash, or about ten billion a year.

Scary by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 05:14 · Score: 0

AOL is owned by the cia, Talk about bigbrother.. lemmie see ICQ, msn, Yahoo.. there some form of control here..

What IF its part of the bigger plan to control the internet.. and ooh ooh, people are putting the two together so bang lets change the name..

you know let some company buy it.. is this for real?! is this company have any ties with cia?!

naw I'm just crazy

whatreallyhappened.com (Impeach bush!!)

Write to your congress critter to stop this! by Zhe+Mappel · 2003-11-13 05:34 · Score: 3, Funny

Tell your representative that we need a bill to keep America Online...American!

Tell him or her that you don't want to see any further loss of American jobs in important sectors of the economy -- like producing endlessly wasteful sign-up CD-ROMs, policing the speech of adults as if they were children, and shoveling load after load of unwanted ads down the throat of miserable subscribers!

(P.S. Dear Germans: would you mind buying Microsoft, too?)

Re:Write to your congress critter to stop this! by burns210 · 2003-11-13 19:10 · Score: 1

government controlled ISP? *gag*

D'OH!!! by gfxguy · 2003-11-13 05:47 · Score: 1

I didn't blame anybody for the failed merger, just pointing out that most of us would have been happier if it never happened to begin with. AOL's been dragging the company down because the stock price has been adjusting to what it should be instead of the artificially inflated price it was.

I even managed to say something nice about AOL - which must be a first on slashdot!

But more to the point - Time Warner content is not going to save AOL. People don't want a premium service when they can get what they want - internet service - from someone else for a lower price. I can't save AOL, neither can Time Warner - AOL is going to have to compete. That means lower prices. That's what people want. More technically oriented people also don't want to have to install a client in order to connect to the internet - most ISPs will let you connect with the software included in most OSes. AOL is bloatware. Of all the things people dislike about AOL, not having Time Warner content is NOT one of them, so I'm at a loss at what you think anybody else can do to help AOL.

--
Stupid sexy Flanders.

Re:D'OH!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 10:02 · Score: 0

You are missing my point...

It is no use complaining now about the merger. Both AOL and TW had inflated market caps at the time. When a company has too much money, it spends it, hopefully on something that can generate even more profit. At the time, it seemed like a good idea: Merge the largest company in the new media arena with one of the oldest companies holding quite a bit of old media property.

It isn't AOL's fault that the market crashed afterward, everyone was on a high during that time period. The stock correcting itself down to a more reasonable price isn't solely for AOL to blame. Take Disney as an example non-technology entertainment company (similar to TW before the merger), they were up in the low 40s in '00, and have dipped down below 20 recently. So being tied to AOL isn't the only thing that brought your stock down, everyone has suffered from the market correction.

Also, I never stated that TW content could save AOL. But, the more our companies work together, the better it will be for both of us. My point is that we need to all work together to get through tough times. Your finger pointing is typical of the things we hear all the time in the AOL campuses, and we are sick of it. We have been cutting costs like crazy, working many hours and seen lots of our friends get laid off, on top of that, we have to listen to non-contributors like you claiming that we have been: bringing you down ever since. Bullshit, I say, and if you don't like the companies directions/decisions, find somewhere else to work, because we are gonna stick around.

AOL, from loss to loss by Animats · 2003-11-13 05:48 · Score: 2, Informative

AOL lost money for six years and hid it with funny accounting until the SEC caught them. They were treating those giveaway AOL disks as a capital expense. Really.

Now they're in decline. Why would anyone want to acquire them, except as a distressed company? Their "content"? Yeah, right.

Re:AOL, from loss to loss by burns210 · 2003-11-13 19:07 · Score: 1

well, the 25 or so MILLION subscribers would convince me pretty damn fast.

Clever Germans by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 06:24 · Score: 0

Those clever germans. This is really just a warning to their plans to conquer France again. I'm not crazy... Here's the logic behind it:

They purchase AOL.

Change the name to Germany On-Line.

GOL is really the pronunciation of Gaul.

Gaul is an ancient region of western Europe that included northern Italy and France and Belgium and part of Germany and the Netherlands

It all makes sense, I tell you!!

Intel Jingle = Duricel Jingle? by bsDaemon · 2003-11-13 07:14 · Score: 1

Coppermine == Coppertop? methinks so.

Company to have a new name... by wcrowe · 2003-11-13 07:49 · Score: 0, Troll

Perhaps they'll change the name to Aryans Online.

--
Proverbs 21:19

What's wrong with the Germans? by danielsfca2 · 2003-11-13 08:04 · Score: 1

> when I tell friends who really owns T-Mobile, more than one has decided they'd like to go with a domestic provider, even if it's not my employer.

What's wrong with a German-owned wireless company? If there was any other provider in the US besides VZW who had acceptable coverage levels, I would consider going with T-Mobile just as much as with another carrier (except Satan's-spawn Cingular, which has earned "Most Unfavored Carrier" status in my opinion, for its abysmal network).

Besides, VZW is 44.3% owned by Vodafone, which is incorporated in the UK.

I guess my point is, how is doing business with a your average American company more desirable than with a your average German company? If either company can be proven "evil" somehow, then that taints the equation totally, but if neither is particularly bad, what's the problem? I mean, judging from the take on the current German economy from the posts in this thread, they need the business a lot more than our fat CEOs need another bonus check.

T-Mobile - Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 08:46 · Score: 0

You know, I could have sworn that Microsoft owned a large share of T-Mobile... Is that still the case, or did I miss something? If so, will this leave MS owning both MSN and AOL, and wouldn't that be something for the monopolies courts to look at?

And Ted Turner says... by MilesBehind · 2003-11-13 09:13 · Score: 1

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Re:And Ted Turner says... by Johnnienumlock5 · 2003-11-13 09:56 · Score: 1

Wow I didn't know Turner was a creame puff. Sorry I know a little german.

--
http://www.users.muohio.edu/reamsjp/donate.html
Re:And Ted Turner says... by MilesBehind · 2003-11-13 10:13 · Score: 1

It's good you know a little german, now you can add to it a little american history. :)

The real buyer could be Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 09:16 · Score: 0

T-Online might just be the middleman, designed to make the purchase look legitimate.

The real buyer could be Microsoft.

Of course Microsoft would have to work through a middleman in order to avoid scrutiny from U.S. regulators, especially in light of Microsoft's monopoly-practises conviction. But the fact that their actions are illegal has never stopped Microsoft before.

This would be one more step in Microsoft's plan to control the Internet, and its protocols.

It appears that T-Online and Microsoft have had close ties for quite some time:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2000/Jan0 0/TOnlinePR.asp

> T-Online Adopts Windows Media as Digital Media Platform

> Jan. 31, 2000 - Microsoft Corp. and T-Online today announced that T-Online, the largest Internet service provider in Germany, has adopted Microsoft Windows Media Technologies as a digital media platform and will use Windows Media for streaming and downloading digital media for its new broadband services.

http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/112260 1

> May 15, 2002 - Microsoft Reportedly Mulling T-Online Stake

> Microsoft Corp. might take a 25-percent stake in Europe's largest Internet service provider (ISP), according to a German business magazine.

> If consummated, the partnership would create a challenge to AOL by extending the reach of MSN, Microsoft's Internet unit.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1 0_990751

> March 13, 2002 - Two German Giants Go .NET

> Microsoft Corp. trumpeted a major victory in the telecom market Wednesday, announcing that Deutsche Telekom [owns T-Online] -- Europe's largest telecommunications company -- is adopting its Microsoft .NET Platform for its mobile and solutions businesses.

http://www.t-online.net/c/06/68/92/668922.html

> T-Online brings Xbox gamers onto the Internet

> Xbox users in Germany will soon be playing via T-Online. Thanks to cooperation with Microsoft, T-Online will be the first Internet service provider in the German gaming arena to be certified "Xbox Live compatible" as of the European release of "Xbox Live" on 14 March 2003.

Re:The real buyer could be Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 09:27 · Score: 0

Of course Microsoft would have to work through a middleman in order to avoid scrutiny from U.S. regulators...

That could be the case.

Why is it that the regulators looked so closely at deal between AOL and Time Warner (and almost blocked it), yet they don't bat an eye as Microsoft buys up or partners with ISP after ISP???

After all, the AOL/Time Warner deal did not give AOL the power to block its competitors (i.e. become a monopoly).

Microsoft, on the other hand, is going to end up controlling both the access AND the content, through it's 90% share of Internet clients (obtained illegally) and its deals with various ISPs.

Why doesn't charpick work in a textbox? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 09:45 · Score: 0

The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung

I wondered why you used the ue to represent the umlaut u. Then I tried charpick, and although it puts an umlaut u in the "Comment", this gets turned into an ordinary u when I click on Preview. Who needs to fix what?

Why would it make sense? by -stax · 2003-11-13 11:30 · Score: 1

Well, T-Online pumped LOADS of capital into ish www.ish.de and www.ish.com, aka Kabel Nordrhine Westphalia. This was THE cable monoply for 30-50% of the german cable TV market. They were renamed Ish as part of the marketing campaign.

It was rumored that Ish was also looking to pick up large to medium cable providers across europe at the time and become THE end all, be all broadband provider for europe. All for T-Online.

Ish then outsourced the building of their datacenter to High Speed Access, which was started by Paul Allen to funnel services to the giant Charter Communications. When he decided to bankrupt HSA in 2001 and sell the assets to Charter at pennies on the dollar, Ish was left without anyone to develop their portal, staff their NOC and man their datacenter. They hired on a few americans and basically it has failed.

Two years later, T-Online is looking to take another shot at the broadband market, and how better to do it than by picking up the devalued AOL in american dollars w/a 1.15:1 exchange rate? As others have said, AOL is probably undervalued and the NAME would go a long way in Germany. As much as they hate americans, they love american names and products.

Thus "America On-Line" would probably sell better than ISH, a local slang for Ich, or I in English. As T-Online (T-Online/DT same thing) only has a partial hold in Ish, they can let it die slowly. Ah well, Schumachers Kartbahn was the best part of that job anyways.

Doesn't matter who buys it... by Eggplant62 · 2003-11-13 12:21 · Score: 1

It'll still suck like a Hoover...

Even more difficult refences by eamonman · 2003-11-13 12:34 · Score: 1

No, it'll just mean that after you sign up for AOL, you'll stop getting mail from the mailman.

Also on a really wet (slippery) day, your internet connection will be going along well and will suddenly crash badly.

Also Seal will really hate you.

--
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC

That's funny.. by michaelhood · 2003-11-13 12:37 · Score: 0

I just got an offer to buy AOL for $23.95/month in the mail. Is this some sort of financing deal?

Speaking of sales people by iamhassi · 2003-11-13 14:48 · Score: 1

"Me: Actually yes, according to your sales people, you _do_ support VPNs"

I use to do support for a major competing DSL provider and we'd get all kinds of stories that sales told customers. Trust me when I say that sales will promise whatever you want to get the sale. Why? They get commission whether they lied to you or not, and if it's easier to make a sale by lying then they'll lie to customers all day long.

--
my karma will be here long after I'm gone

Re:Speaking of sales people by Shakrai · 2003-11-13 16:42 · Score: 1

I use to do support for a major competing DSL provider and we'd get all kinds of stories that sales told customers
WOW! The sales department lied and/or exaggerated what they could deliver? NO WAY! My world is falling apart!
Sorry, that might have been out of line. My point being, that regardless of what sales promised (and it was hardly the salesman on the phone pushing it to get commission -- they do mass mailings touting how "ideal" their platform is for business VPN use), blaming my problems on my "non-standard OS" and the VPN that "We don't support" (contrary to every published piece of literature they have -- AND their own webpage) is a piss poor excuse for a simple network outage. Guess my "non standard OS" and VPN setup was the reason why the rest of the town was offline at the same time eh? Perhaps if they hired people that cared about their job and paid them a decent salary, they would have a better attitude towards the customer then "Hey, it's only my problem until 5pm. Why don't you bugger off and stop bothering me?"
I don't call tech support looking for them to wave the magic wand and bring the connection back up. I call them to see if there are any known network issues -- and if there are, how long until they are repaired. Considering the amount of money we spend on this DSL connection (and our other data circuits for that matter) I think I have a right to demand this information -- and rest assured, one way or another, I will get it out of them.
I also call because I know that they make a log everytime I do (much the same way we do when our customers call) and I'll have that history to refer to if I ever need to cancel the contract because the service quality is unacceptable. For this reason alone I'll call them over any outage that lasts more then two minutes. I would urge anyone else out there tied into a long term contract to do the same.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:Speaking of sales people by iamhassi · 2003-11-14 14:48 · Score: 1

blaming my problems on my "non-standard OS" and the VPN that "We don't support" (contrary to every published piece of literature they have -- AND their own webpage) is a piss poor excuse for a simple network outage.
If you're using anything not supported don't expect to call support and ask them anything, even if it is just a simple "is the network down?" question. Why? They could lose their jobs for helping you.
You'd be shocked the number of people I had to tell "sorry, we don't support 64megs" and end the conversation right there, even though I knew I could get their DSL up and running in 5 minutes. Actually, the number is almost the same as the number of people who called with VPN and I told them the same thing. When I'd argue with management over blowing off customers with BS reasons I was basically told "like it or leave".
You might be saying "then I'll take my business elsewhere!" and SBC would say "we don't care". I was just one of 600 tech employees at the smallest of ~5 service centers in the US. Unless you're Microsoft they'll never notice you're gone.

--
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Re:Speaking of sales people by Shakrai · 2003-11-14 17:05 · Score: 1

If you're using anything not supported don't expect to call support and ask them anything, even if it is just a simple "is the network down?" question. Why? They could lose their jobs for helping you.
That's not my problem. I will get the answer I am looking for. It's just a matter of having the right attitude to cut though the "I don't care about my job" mentally that exists at these places.
Regardless of supported or not, I will call them. Even if only for the "Getting it placed on our account history" point that I raised in my previous post.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:Speaking of sales people by iamhassi · 2003-11-17 13:54 · Score: 1

" It's just a matter of having the right attitude to cut though the "I don't care about my job" mentally that exists at these places. "
just remember, the "I don't care about my job" mentally is taught to them. They come in as average IT folks and are taught to ignore and avoid helping customers, and if they do and caught they're fired, or at least reprimanded.
Here's a story about that: I once had a customer call complaining about pop-ups even then they weren't surfing and blamed it on our software and threatened to cancel. I assured them it's not our software (although I knew it might be) and helped them find pop-up stopper and a program that'd remove spyware. A manager walked by and noticed what I was doing and asked what I was doing. I explained I was helping a customer with problems with pop-ups. I was told it wasn't our problem and the customer would have to figure it out themselves. I told the customer I could no longer help them with the issue. The customer was shocked, not happy and hung up. I was then reprimanded for even answering a question like that.
When you're told daily "screw the customer" how much are you going to care about your job?
"Regardless of supported or not, I will call them"
Well of course, who else you gonna call?

--
my karma will be here long after I'm gone

Re:Der Spiegel, mit boobies? (Stern) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 15:27 · Score: 0

Stern, I think it was after lots of deep ... thought. .

I gave up. I blocked t-online permanently by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-13 16:36 · Score: 0

Fuck 'em. They ignore spam complaints and I get truckloads of spam from them. Not any more though.

They're a natural to take over AOL.

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