Let's not forget that, after deposing the Saddam regime, this is not supposed to be a war but a peace process aiming to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqis.
How one can bring freedom and democracy by abuses, tortures and killings is beyond me.
This is turning into a Vietnam more quickly than one would imagine perhaps partly because of digital cameras:-)
Not outside the US. In Europe for example, AOL is (at best) just another ISP and in most countries it does not even exist as an ISP and what else does AOL do apart from being an ISP? Yes, nothing! (Would any non-AOL user download AIM?)
It might sound strange, but MS has less competition in Europe in markets like IM than it does in the US (because of AOL). A possible integration of ICQ (widely used in Europe) with MSN (used quite a lot) and AIM (not really used) would leave yahoo picking up a few small pieces just making sure MS does not have a monopoly.
My gut feeling is that... the AOL name will slowly dissapear, first outside the US, where it hardly makes sense (ie. AMERICA On Line:), and (perhaps) in the US as well, helped by the fact that as you said AOL does not really have much of a brand value (other than "Internet for Dummies" perhaps) which well can be taken over by MSN as well - hell I am sure Bill would like some MSNized AOL-kind-of-users only surfing MSN.com with an MSN broswer - what is the possibility those users would ever switch from Windows to any other O/S?
IF the acquisition happens, it IS a big step towards world domination...
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Let's not forget that, after deposing the Saddam regime, this is not supposed to be a war but a peace process aiming to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqis.
:-)
How one can bring freedom and democracy by abuses, tortures and killings is beyond me.
This is turning into a Vietnam more quickly than one would imagine perhaps partly because of digital cameras
AOL has always been a bigger name than MSN.
Not outside the US. In Europe for example, AOL is (at best) just another ISP and in most countries it does not even exist as an ISP and what else does AOL do apart from being an ISP? Yes, nothing! (Would any non-AOL user download AIM?)
It might sound strange, but MS has less competition in Europe in markets like IM than it does in the US (because of AOL). A possible integration of ICQ (widely used in Europe) with MSN (used quite a lot) and AIM (not really used) would leave yahoo picking up a few small pieces just making sure MS does not have a monopoly.
My gut feeling is that... the AOL name will slowly dissapear, first outside the US, where it hardly makes sense (ie. AMERICA On Line:), and (perhaps) in the US as well, helped by the fact that as you said AOL does not really have much of a brand value (other than "Internet for Dummies" perhaps) which well can be taken over by MSN as well - hell I am sure Bill would like some MSNized AOL-kind-of-users only surfing MSN.com with an MSN broswer - what is the possibility those users would ever switch from Windows to any other O/S?
IF the acquisition happens, it IS a big step towards world domination...