aol gets desperate, destroys meaning of netscape

[Q Classic]

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60820,00.html

netscape's a browser, not a cut-rate dialup service. damn aol, damn them to hell. first they just give an awful product. then they go and ruin time warner. now they go and destroy eveything netscape once stood for.

how can anyone not believe that aol is the most evil company in the world? far, far, far, far worse than sco of microsoft.

[JohnT]

In other news, yesterday AOL-Time Warner renamed the entire company to Time-Warner, dropping the "AOL" from both its name and stock symbol in an attempt to help investors forget one of history's most disasterous mergers.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/13/technology/aol_name/index.htm

[JohnT]

And I agree with you, Q. AOL, as a company and as a product, is far worst than MS. They've amazingly have brought down the value of all their corporate partners since their founding in the early 1980's. Poor Time Warner is having to undergo a fire sale* to pay down AOL's M&A debt. That's just a damned shame.

I'm eagerly awaiting the definitive history of this deal, and I'm sure that a couple are in the making - however, it might be a while before we see it because the damn thing is still unravelling 3, 4 years later.

*

The company is in the process of selling a number of units it considers "non-core" assets as it tries to reduce debt. At the end of the end of the second quarter net debt was down to $24.2 billion from $28.2 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2001. Chairman and CEO Richard Parsons wants to get net debt below $20 billion by the end of 2004.

Tuesday the company announced it had reached a deal to sell its professional basketball and hockey teams, and earlier this year it sold its half of the Comedy Central cable network to Viacom for $1.23 billion, and its Warner Music Group's DVD and CD manufacturing for $1.05 billion.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/17/technology/aol_meeting/index.htm

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

In trading on the New York Stock Exchange, AOL Time Warner shares were down 4 cents Tuesday to close at $15.71. The company plans to officially drop "AOL" from its name Thursday.

And the world plans to drop AOL the following Friday..........................

[centrifuge]

Indeed, I've never understood why any person with a little knowledge and self respect would use AOL...

[JohnT]

I like having the AOL service because it does allow me to connect from anywhere in the US for the cost of a local call (i.e., free) - my DSL provider doesn't allow that sort of access.

It's also a pretty safe place to dump the wife and kids so that they don't F-up my browser and email settings.

[CerberusIV]

In case you didn't notice, Netscape died a while back and AOL have completely abandoned any browser other than IE.

I use AOL because it works and I am too lazy to change. I certainly won't be interested in a cut rate package that only gives 1 email address if they launch this in the UK.

This reminds me of Infogrames calling themselves Atari to try and get away from their past mistakes. I wonder which long dead brand will be resurrected next?

[Jack_www]

The reason I think that AOL is losing people is that you can now get DSL for 29.95 a month. While their stupid dail up is $24 a month. AOL also gives out crap service too. The use of the Netscape name wont save their stupid company.

[Q Classic]

use different browser/email profiles. better yet, use xp's user switching.

i know netscape died a long time ago. but the name netscape conjures up an innovative browser during the heady days of the new internet. it still is good, even if its later incarnations sucked and blew.

aol is now using the name in a repulsive way, not unlike how the bug used that dude's skin in men in black.

which is, btw, the same way infogrames is now abusing atari.

[DanS]

They bought the name, and for much more than what it was worth. As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they like with it.

[Q Classic]

but it's just.... wrong.

AOL == Hellspawn. Compared to them, Microsoft == Angelic.

[Gibsie]

What a load of rubbish.

Most people I know in Britain that use AOL just minimise it and use the external browser anyway and they'd muchly prefer the internal browser to not exist at all. Hell, I think we'd prefer they just didn't exist period.

[Gatekeeper]

I still have Netscape 4.08 on my machine, but it's rarely used. I'm also shocked by the fact that AOL-Time Warner (or just TWC?) is more than $20 billion in debt. Good grief. That's no way to run a company.

Gatekeeper

[Q Classic]

it was aol that did it.

but it's now just time warner.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Time Warner was fine before AOL (Arrogantly Offensive Lardbutts) got involved.