AOL In Talks With Microsoft to Merge Online Divisions, Says WSJ

Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft executives are reportedly meeting with their AOL counterparts to discuss combining the two companies' online divisions. No one from either side is willing to comment, nor has the structure of the supposed deal been worked out. The original unconfirmed report comes from the Wall Street Journal (password-protected). A few months ago there was talk about AOL teaming up with Yahoo, but that never materialized." The free excerpt at the WSJ link above seems to say about as much as this Bloomberg wire report which refers to it, and the above-linked story at The Standard; this Reuters story indicates that AOL is still courting or being courted by Yahoo!, too.

Two Dying Firms racing to the bottom

[WillAffleckUW]

Can't say anyone really cares much anymore about either one.

And I say that as a former shareholder of both.

Everyone Wins!

[thatskinnyguy]

Despite AOL being in the twilight of its existence, I think it would be an absolutely shrewd move on the executive's part to merge/sell-out to another company. That way, they have their buy-out packages as a between job buffer. Microsoft can gut the company and use their data centers and such. I won't have to deal with AOL as a browser or dial-up service on people's computers anymore. Everyone wins! [except the employees of AOL]

The Google obsession

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Ballmer is completely fixated with trying to beat Google, if only in the very short term. Ballmer wants eyeballs and user base to be able to say:"Yes, I beat Google". Of course, in the grander scheme of things two sinking ships are still sinking and Google is only growing in market share. Further, Google has almost gotten big enough that it is bigger than the rest of the players combined so the window of opportunity to beat Google has slammed shut.

Ballmer's craziness is also reflected in their other acquisitions. Why would they buy http://www.danger.com/ [danger.com] which has no integration with Windows Mobile? Only to make fight with Google's Android.

MS supposedly cost $10bn to develop (depending on what sources you read) and MS was prepared to spend $40bn for Yahoo. Surely MS should be thinking of spending more on fixing their core business.

Hey Ballmer, if you want to survive then you need to be less competitor focused and more customer focused. Don't let you megalomania divert you from core business.

Re: Question

[rs232]

"Would MS still have gone after AOL if they had a successful bid on Yahoo?"

Obviously *no*, but isn't Microsoft also going to have to report this deal to the US antitrust subcommittee [infoworld.com] .. :)

Dialup

[DrugCheese]

I would think for dialup, people are gonna go with AOL or MSN because those are the names out there. It's been years n years since I've used dialup or even remember seeing a local place advertise for it. The way websites are getting crazier and crazier stuffing content onto them Microsoft knows that the best way to secure future high speed users is to have them as current dialup users.

Re:The Google obsession

[AeroIllini]

Being competitor-focused is Microsoft's core business. They've done this since day one [wikipedia.org].

Yay, Vista coasters!

[Khelder]

I guess this means soon I'll start getting a stream of Vista CDs in the mail and I can "upgrade" my coasters. Pretty handy in the hot & humid weather here, I'll tell you.