Microsoft to buy AOL
Sarah Perez on September 22nd, 2005
If you thought Microsoft was on a downward spiral, then this just seals it. Microsoft is in talks regarding acquiring an AOL stake and then combining it with Microsoft’s Web unit MSN. Microsoft would pay Time Warner for the AOL stake, leaving the two companies approximately equal partners in the venture. I’m sure Time Warner would be happy to get AOL off its hands, but what’s in it for MS? Well, investers are giving AOL a valuation of more than $10 billion, but it could eventually be making in the $15 billion to $20 billion range. No more butterfly? No more MSN browser? Oh darn.
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I wonder what MS would do with Netscape, The portal and the browser?
I saw you in the TBT! You go girl! Woo hoo!!
Hmmm, what other overrated, past-its-prime interest can they buy? CueCat? Prodigy?
Before you all go poo-pooing MS just for kicking AOL’s tires, consider: Google is also rumored to be looking at buying into it. Two reasons: Google actually needs its current AOL partnership to keep its traffic numbers up (and they will drop if an easy link to Google within AOL’s interface isn’t there); and, longer-term, as a possible foundation for the long-speculated Google ISP.
Different spin on that? If MS is the buyer, it’s a gloomy assessment; but since everything Google does is golden, it would be viewed as fabulous. All in perception.
I don’t know…I don’t think anyone who gets involved with AOL can make it “golden”!