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Russian Company Buys ICQ

Posted by Soulskill on from the end-of-a-market-strategy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "AOL has sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), Russia's largest Internet company, for US$187.5 million. DST's offer was apparently more attractive than those of Russia's ProfMedia and China's Tencent. ICQ, originally released in 1996 and bought by AOL in 1998 for US$407 million, was one of the world's first major instant messaging systems. Although largely forgotten in English-speaking countries, it remains widely popular in Central Europe, Russia, and Israel. Moscow News has additional coverage of the deal."

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Well, given the tons spam from that region by sethstorm · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I am not surprised by who would buy it.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  2. I still use ICQ by Ark42 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I still use some OLD version of ICQ on Windows 7, because I never found another client that behaves as nicely. All the 3rd party stuff I've tried either failed to connect to the ICQ servers or failed basic features like file transfer or the ability to communicate with AIM screen-names from an ICQ account. Also, this ICQ client still has no ads and never pops up a chat screen overtop of anything else I'm doing. I frickin hate it when those other clients steal window focus even when you're typing in an unrelated program. All IM programs should blink patiently in the tray!

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    Morphing Software
  3. New incoming message! by Gavin+Rogers · · Score: 0, Redundant

    1995 called. They want their instant messaging back.