Time Warner Wants to Dump AOL

[Rapier]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9110207&source=NLT_MSFT&nlid=74

Microsoft buying AOL is even dumber than Microsoft buying Yahoo.



Report: Time Warner in talks with Yahoo, Microsoft for AOL deal
A merger or sale of AOL may be in the works, according to Reuters
By Linda Rosencrance
July 16, 2008 (Computerworld) Time Warner Inc. is in separate talks with Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. to sell its AOL LLC Internet division before Yahoo holds its annual shareholders meeting on Aug. 1, according to a Reuters report.

The structure of the deal is unclear, according to Reuters Group Ltd. Unidentified sources had previously said that any deal with Time Warner would probably involve an AOL merger with Yahoo, with Time Warner taking a minority stake in the combined company, according to Reuters. However, the sources told Reuters that any deal with Microsoft would involve the sale of AOL to the software maker.

Time Warner is apparently interesting in selling AOL as it centers its business around content, not distribution, according to Reuters.

Either of these deals would help position Yahoo or Microsoft to better compete with Google Inc.

Microsoft declined to comment on the report. Neither Yahoo nor Time Warner could be reached for comment.

A Microsoft deal with AOL makes sense if Microsoft's goal is to increase traffic, said Allan Krans, an analyst at Technology Business Research Inc. in Hampton, N.H.

[mbossman2]

AOL is a millstone around TW's neck, they never figured out what to do with it once they bought it.

MS's strategy as it relates to Yahoo makes more sense. MS is trying to buy a similar platform to Google to position itself to compete against Google's aps (http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/user_features.html). Google's (as well as competing products from WebEx, InterCall and Web Office) ability to allow for worldwide collaboration is the next big "killer app". A lot of companies (on the hosting and the usage side) are making this investment as it makes a lot more sense than some face to face meetings.

[David-M]

When the internet was young, AOL really was useful. But now, AOL is nothing more than internet for retards. AOL is for people who are to stupid or lazy to know how to use Google to find things or know how to set up a free email account through Yahoo. In my opinion, nobody needs AOL...nobody. Not corporations nor individuals. AOL really needs to go the way of the Netscape. This would be the natural conclusion to a dead end on the evolutionary tree. The best thing would be for Time Warner to dissolve AOL leaving the knuckle head subscribers with no way to access the internet. AOL simply has no substance that cannot be found elsewhere online...for free. If someone is too stupid to figure out how to subscribe to and use a "difficult" ISP like Comcrap...then perhaps they should not be online? After all, eventually the wolves like the pfishers are going to eat them alive anyways.

[bob]

Ted turner is looking to see how many shares he has left.