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AOL to be Split into 4 Units
unsupported writes "AOL is apparently dividing into four units to provide a clear direction for each. The four divisions are as follows: Audience (Advertising, and AOL IM, Moviefon, Mapquest, Netscape.com), Access (dial-up, highspeed), AOL Europe (for the foreigners), and Digital Services (Premium services, phone and music subscription). "
Thats like saying if we divide a turd up into four pieces it will be better. This one is stinky, this on is nutty, this one is creamy, and the last one is green.
LOL Oh!! so much better!
Dead and Buried
Halitosis - (n.) Halle Berry's Camel Toe.
The "I-hardly-know-English" outsourced tech support division.
It should probably be Anti Rest of World Online to more correctly reflect Americas global attitude.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
AOL still has a few more years left in them. Cable and DSL haven't quite become ubiquitous, and there are enough people in the "heartland" who aren't familiar enough with the Internet to know better.
Uhh, I'd hate to break this to you Captain Culture, but it isn't just people in the heartland. I live in NJ, work in Manhattan and I know plenty of people who stick with AOL even AFTER getting broadband because they want to keep their screen names that they've had for 5-10 years now. Just because the guy you voted for lost, doesn't mean everyone in the "heartland" is a mindless hick luddite AOLer
Some tips for the boys and girls at AOL:
1. A commercial showing 19 gazillion people lining up outside your corporate headquarters to complain is probably, how shall I say, ill-advised?
2. Speaking of which, I've got a idea on how you can make the Internet better: Stop undermining your own product *cough*Netscape*cough*. Next thing you know, they'll be telling their subscribers that they have to use the MSN front-end to access the AOL service.
3. If you're in Europe, then you're sure the heck not America Online are you, cheesedick? Rename that division. America's stock in the world isn't too high right now, so make the A stand for something else. I know this has been pointed out ad infinitum, but I think it bears repeating since the geniuses over there obviously haven't caught on yet.
4. Be a uniter, not a divider. Please merge with another company and finally collapse under your own weight, already. What good is splitting up in four gonna do?
5. Newsflash: Joining AOL is not like joining the mob. People can get out and go to a competitor if they want. They don't have to explain themselves to you. Don't like people signing up for the free trial than canceling before they have to pay? Costing you too much? Aww poor babies, let me go cry you a tear or two. Guess what, when you try that marketing bullshit, them's the breaks.
You can look at reorganizing and restructuring and all that jazz till you're blue in the face, but there comes a time to look within and come to terms with your own irrelevance. Getting onto the "Internets" isn't tough anymore. People are catching on.
Adapt or die. Preferably the latter.
Shortly after the Bush administration came in, a Microsoft team and met with DoJ lawyers to discuss new administration priorities and the implications for the anti-trust lawsuit. We expected, privately, Judge Jackson's verdict to stand, but we expected some flexibility as far as the penalty stage went. The DoJ and us put together a plan for an eventual break up of Microsoft that wouldn't disrupt the industry in the same way as the Jackson proposal did.
What we decided was to break up Windows itself. The core operating system and subsystems, including Internet Explorer, together with the largest user of that operating system, Office, would remain with one company. However, tools like "Notepad", "WordPad", "Solitaire", and "HyperTerminal" would be farmed out to self managing teams that would eventually be sold off as seperate companies. Two of the more controvertial choices were File Manager (winfile.exe) and Program Manager (progman.exe), two tools bundled with every desktop version of Windows since 3.1, which provide an alternative shell. Some managers wanted these to remain with the OS, but the DoJ dissented, saying that as they're inherently competitive with the operating system's default shell, they should be farmed out. Gates and Balmer were very insistant that, if they had to unbundle them, they should go to seperate companies (eg WinFile Software Inc and Program Management Software); again the DoJ was unhappy with this, but allowed it as long as the companies would be allowed to merge after two years of independence.
This "unbundling", of critical tools supplied with the operating system but not tools that the operating system relies upon, would, the DoJ felt, foster competition. We did a presentation to show that the tools wouldn't harm Windows too much, but how our inclusion of them - with the best possible motives of course - had pretty much killed off the third party market for text editors and card games. It's extremely hard to find either these days.
In the end, the Appeals Court not only overturned the penalties, but the entire court case resulted in pretty much a win for us. So it never came to that. It'd be funny to think that some of Microsoft's most beloved applications might have ended up being sold seperately, by "Notepad Inc" and what have you!