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Microsoft Eyeing AOL?
meriksen writes "This article on the CNN website suggests that Microsoft is looking to acquire AOL. What are the chances and do /. readers think this will ever happen?" The NY Post story is slightly more informative.
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Although it could happen, I'm sure a monopoly the size of MS could never be allowed to acquire the media behemoth of AOL TW. (Who own a helluva lot of media...CNN has a lot of mindshare, and if they're acquired there could well be problems with impartiality, like NBC and GE.)
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
ZDnet has a similar blurb.
Summary is that TimeWarner says that TWX and MSFT have been talking about DRM, but that the other rumors are simply not true. The full press release is here:_ 2.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040319/tech_aol_microsoft
A while ago Microsoft was considering purchasing Google. On the other hand AOL has right to buy nearly 2 million Google shares. If MS buys AOL then, by implication, MS has the same right ...
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
Please people, stop speculating on what would happen if MS bought AOL-TW. The article is about TimeWarner selling its AOL portion to Microsoft. It does say that they are discussing MS possibly investing in TimeWarner as part of the deal though. But that is not quite the same a MS taking over the whole kit and kaboodle.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
A lot of people have been bashing AOL, and it's true that it's probably not a good choice for most /. readers. But they have a lot of features that are good for some pretty big niche markets (people with small kids, for example).
I have a Time-Warner cable modem. Time-Warner has to let other ISPs use its cable lines, so when you sign up, you can take Time-Warner's Road-Runner, Earthlink, a local company, or AOL as your ISP.
If you walk into the cable company office, you see tons of promotional material for Road Runner. They have cartoon road runners on posters all over the place, terminals in the office so you can see how fast it is, and all the rest.
But there is no sign whatsoever that AOL is available. You have to know about it. I'm not even sure you can sign up for AOL at the office -- you might have to call AOL and get it set up.
Whether or not you like AOL, it's a big brand, and a lot of people do like it. I think that if they had posters for AOL at the office, along side of the Road Runner stuff, they'd sell as many AOL accounts as Road Runner accounts.
They don't, though. Why? Corporate infighting? Not wanting the other guys to look good? I don't know.
The point is that AOL is an asset that Time-Warner, for whatever reasons, doesn't want to maximize. Someone else would do a better job.
No No, Mozilla will be alive and well, first off Mozilla was an open source license. Second the Mozilla Foundation was created and AOL gave them a nice $2M gift to get started. They are are a separate legal entity. Mozilla is now independent of AOL. As for the future of xmms and winamp well who knows. However I think (IANAL) the "look" of winamp would be a trademark and not a copyright. If a trademark is not defended then you lose the trademark. Since xmms has been out for a few years now no worries.
As of Sept 2003:
-America Online had 24.7 million subscribers and a 25.6% share
-MSN had 8.7 million subscribers and a 9.0% share.
So MSFT could buy the dialup business and hold a significantly larger share of the ISP business. 34.6% does not a monopoly make.
Take the content and Roadrunner and Cable. Combine it with Paul Allen's Comcast and you now have 45% of the ISP market and a significant portion of the cable TV market
Time Warner Roadrunner broadband never offered AOL as an ISP option. So I suspect that they do not think highly of AOL even within the walls. You can even get Earhlink or Max.Inter.Net as an alternative!
Have you Meta Moderated t
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
They will have Antitrust problems. MS already owns a chunk of Comcast another broadband provider. Acquiring AOL broadband and dialup business will make them a target for DOJ antitrust investigation. And that a cool thing for Billy and Melinda's kids' future.
It's not gonna happen.
Several things happened to AOL over the last 10 years. Ten years ago, AOL first hit critical mass of 1 million subscribers.
Eight years ago, AOL purchased WebCrawler and a few other companies. They launched AOL Europe opening internet service to the German public. And AOL Europe didn't make money, but cost a bundle to set up.
Seven years ago, as AOL popularity grew - they ran into their first significant snag. Users were complaining about busy signals. For the first time, AOL started loosing customers. So they went on a one year buying campaign, and bought tons of "local access" phone banks in colocation across the US. They also launched AIM.
Six years ago, with all of their mistakes being paid for on credit, and the good faith of a very fast internet access (dial-up) business - they expanded their European operations, and started marketing to the mass media, and giving away the first several hours of service free. And putting me in a position where I didn't have to buy floppy's for three years. They also bought CompuServe and ICQ networks.
Five years ago, AOL buys Netscape, MovieFone, Spinner, Winamp and SHOUTcast. Still spending money. This is when broadband starts /really/ catching on.
Four years ago, AOL merged with Time Warner. They had been spending money like it's going out of style and were expecting - the whole time - that the ever expanding market would pay for all of this.
In 2001, AOL surpassed 30 million subscribers. But the market was saturated. No more new blood to pay for the expanded debt. But, for the first time, AOL Europe started pulling it's own profit.
In 2002 AT&T pulled out of the AOL/Time Warner business, and since then AOL has been stagnant.
Add the economic downturn, and the fact that AOL is trying to expand into China and Japan (expensive prospect), and they are an Albatross. They are very profitable (for now) mind you, but without growth, their existing infrastructure is aging... How long will they stay profitable?