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AOL To Be Purchased By T-Online?
Posted by
Hemos
on Thu Nov 13, 2003 07:59 AM
from the moving-around-like-a-hockey-puck dept.
from the moving-around-like-a-hockey-puck dept.
Sique writes "The german newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports on its website, that the german ISP T-Online wants to buy AOL. The article is titled American Dream, but the actual wording is german. Ask the fish for help." There's also the article in Der Spiegel about the potential purchase as well; you can also check out T-Online's site.
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Not surprising... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not surprising... (Score:5, Interesting)
As an employee, I wish they would - AOL consumed Time Warner because they had artificially high stock prices and decided it was time for something with real value. They've been dragging us down ever since.
Don't get me wrong - the press is really hard on AOL. Yes, customers are leaving, but they still have the most customers and charge the highest price. They are still making tons of cash, they're just making less and less of it.
While I wish the company would split, I don't see how another ISP could buy out the largest ISP in the world. Wishful thinking.
Full disclosure: I don't read German, I didn't read the article, so maybe I'm missing something.
Parent
Re:Not surprising... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget also that last week EMI and Time Warner were in talks to merge their music divisions
AOL/Time Warner demerger on the cards
Re:Not surprising... (Score:3, Interesting)
I see AOL as the Apple of the space. If you wind back to the days of the original Mac Apple was making its money from being the easy to use personal computer and charging a premium for doing so. AOL is in pretty much exactly the same niche and with the same limitatations.
The Mac
Please release IM, let IM go... (Score:4, Insightful)
If this is more than an American Dream, let's hope that an outcome will be that AOL will loosen their grip on the IM market. The closed model they've been trying to enforce has been holding back a world of possibilities for Jabber and IM client development.
Parent
Re:Please release IM, let IM go... (Score:3, Interesting)
oh, I don't know, maybe tens of millions of people paying $23.95/month for internet service, a large userbase with disposable cash to advertise to, and a nearly ubiquitous brand name?
Sure, AOL is starting to crumble and the TimeWarner merger turned out badly, but there is still a huge amount of possiblity for AOL. Given the right management and strategy.
Re:Not surprising... (Score:2, Funny)
So.. (Score:5, Funny)
Rus
Re:So.. (Score:2)
Uh Huh (Score:3, Funny)
I want to buy AOL, too. I just don't have the money for it...
Talisman
Re:Uh Huh (Score:2)
hacker haven just got larger (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:hacker haven just got larger (Score:3)
Both AOL's and T-Online's abuse departments aren't that bad. If you know some people who work there and inform them directly about abuse, they'll react quickly and correctly.
What's wrong on both ISPs is the way abuse notifications are being handled officially, that is, if you don't know any people there and inform them via official addresses. abuse@aol.net seems to be equivalent with /dev/null -
They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) (Score:5, Funny)
Honestly, when it comes to security or any other area that requires basic brain function I'd say the big ISPs are a all the same: Utterly useless.
It's countless times I've called the T-Online Hotline, asked if their mail server was down or the TDSL dialin node was down or some other informal question and every time I've gotten something like this:
Blockhead:"What's your error message?"
Me:"I don't think my error messages are of any use to you."
Blockhead:"What Mailer do you use?"
Me:"*SIGH* K-Mail."
Blockhead:"We only support Outlook or Netscape."
[Meanwhile down in Hell: Satan marks up another Eternity Candidate]
Me:"I know.(I'm not gonna explain to him that E-Mail is a Service while Outlook and Netscape are Mailers and what that all means) I actually just wanted to know if you Mailserver is down."
Blockhead: "What Windows do you use?"
Me: "I use Linux."
Blockhead: "Oh. Well, we don't support Linux." (NOTE THE SIGNIFICANCE: We're in Germany, so he's actually heard the word 'Linux' before)
[Back in Hell: Satan marks Mr. Blockhead up for extra special skinning, boiling and chainsaw subdividing treatment upon arrival.]
Me: "I know.(I'm certainly NOT gonna explain the difference between an Internet Service and an OS to him) I just wanted to know if you Mailserver is down... Could I speak to second level please?"
Blockhead: "Well, all I can say is that due to our troubletickets the Mailserver is up and running and second level won't tell you anything different."
Me: "Thank you very much".
*KLICK* *Duuuuu* (german dialtone)
I seriously doubt it is _any_ better with AOL right now.
Parent
Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) (Score:4, Funny)
Hahahahaha, I used to go though that with my old dialup ISP after the local teleco [frontiernet.net] bought them out. They had messed up DNS configurations (A records for the IPs but no PTRs) that made using ssh and irc (amoung other things) range from a general pain in the ass to nearly impossible.
Have you ever tried to explain to a Level 1 tech how DNS works? "Sorry, we don't support IRC or Linux sir.". After a couple of weeks yelling at them I finally got to talk to the manager of the tech. support ppl and get a name of the head tech guy at corporate to complain to.
Called him up and explained the principal of correctly configured DNS. Problem was fixed two days after that. I no longer use Frontier at home, but my company has a commercial DSL line with them in one of our satellite offices. That can be a fun call to Level 1 too...
Me: Is your DSL in Whitney Point down?
Blockhead: What lights on your router are on?
Me: I don't know, I'm not in that office. Just tell me, is the service down or not?
Blockhead: What OS are you running?
Me: (sighing) Linux, we run a VPN setup
Blockhead: We don't support that.
Me: Actually yes, according to your sales people, you _do_ support VPNs. All I need to know is if the service is down and when it is expected to come back up.
Blockhead: Sir, we don't support non-standard operating systems.
Me: Do you support ICMP Pings? Because I can't ping my box. Is the connection down or not?
Blockhead: I don't know what that is. What lights are on your router?
Me: Let me talk to your supervisor please.
I'm also famous for calling in and demanding a supervisor right off the bat...
Blockhead: Thank you for calling [insert company name here] support, my name is Steve, how may I help you?
Me: Let me talk to a supervisor please.
Blockhead: Sir I can help you.
Me: Steve, you don't want to help me. Let me talk to your supervisor please.
Blockhead: No, sir I can help you.
Me: Ok you asked for it... [begin running explanation of how to maintain an ISP with decent uptimes, explain my experience in the ISP business and the uptimes we managed when I was running things, explain how much money my company pays for this connection, which currently appears to be down, regardless of what lights on my router are currently on, off or blinking]
Blockhead: Let me get my supervisor for you sir....
Ah, sometimes I actually take a twisted form of pleasure in it ;) How sad is that?
Parent
Re:They're all alike (was: Re:hacker haven ...) (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the principal of having to jump though hoops to report an outage on a commercial-grade account that my company pays several hundred dollars a month for. I do feel bad for the Level 1 techs themselves (I used to be one), but not the company that hires them.
I had a similar problem with a Verizon ISDN circuit once. My router (Cisco 776) was reporting an error of "Error 3 - no Route" every time it tried to dial. The idiot that I spoke to told me "We'll send someone out to test the line, but if there aren't any problems, we are going to charge you".
They dispatched someone who did loopback tests and pronounced the line clean and functional. I told them I would try a spare router (another 776) the next day and see if it worked or not -- I wasn't discounting that it could be our equipment, even though I doubted it. No shock, the spare router had the same error message.
They then proceeded to tell me it was my configuration and they didn't support my router (they'd be too happy to support it for $75/hr). I told them this was bullshit -- said configuration had worked fine for years, and wasn't changed prior to the router not working.
This went back and fourth for the next two days (at one point they even claimed that they LOST my ticket and all the notes attached to it) before (after yelling at nearly every person I talked to -- every shread of patience I had was gone at this point) I got a co tech on the line who worked with me on solving the problem (she had me initiating ISDN calls to various numbers while she traced them). Turns out, somebody changed the reroot order in one of their tadem switches (? that means nothing to me, but I'm not a telco weenie) and that caused the calls to disappear into the ether. Why they didn't make this connection earlier is beyond me. If one of my setups stops working the first thing I do is look at anything that has been changed over the last couple of days....
By this point it had been down for 72 hours. I had three different tickets open on this issue before I finally got the knowledgeable CO Tech on the phone. She was helpful and actually knew what she was talking about. Every other idiot told me the problem was on "my end", accused me of "not knowing how to configure your own equipment", (my retort to that being "I guess Cisco's CCNP certification is overrated then"), and "We'll fix it, but it'll cost $75/hr." Three weeks after this problem was solved we received an invoice for the initial visit that did not solve or even diagnosis the problem. Needless to say, we did not pay said invoice...
It's even more amusing to me that the little Mom & Pop ISP I worked for could go three years without a major outage (the outage that did occur was due to a car hitting a telephone pole outside of our building -- beyond our control) yet major national ISPs with (for all intents and purposes) infinite resources can't manage the same feat, even for their commercial customers. The situation has stabilized somewhat now, but initially the DSL account in question would go down at least once every two weeks for half an hour or so. And that doesn't count the little 30 second "hiccups" that occurred from time to time.
I did eventually speak with the manager of the tech support and got a satisfactory answer out of him -- too few techs employed for the number of calls, company refusing to give out another contact number for non-tech support problems, stressed out customers blaming his people, etc etc. We had quite the mutual rant session for awhile.
Bottom line: I understand outages occur and they are beyond the control of the avg guy at tech support. Just don't read to me from your sheet about router lights and operating systems when you have a known outage on your screen and an estimated time of repair for said outage. If you do, I'm going to rip you a new one, and rip your supervisor a
Parent
Already denied... (Score:5, Informative)
According to Heise online [heise.de] this has already been denied by T-Online [heise.de] (sorry, German only).
Basically, what they are saying in that news article is that some spokesman from T-Online claims buying AOL would be "economical nonsense". But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies. And while T-Online is the biggest online provider of Europe it is largely unknown outside of Europe, thus buying AOL would make sense to some people because T-Online likes to expand and conquer markets outside of Europe.
Re:Already denied... (Score:3, Funny)
Those Germans really need a new business model.
Pretty soon you'll be hearing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pretty soon you'll be hearing... (Score:2, Funny)
Ja, und wie sagt man "spam" auf Deutsch?
German AOL's Creation (Score:2, Interesting)
Incredible (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Incredible (Score:2)
Why the surprise? AOL served its purpose by getting hundreds of millions of people online and aware of the internet. It is a dead duck and many people have made tons of money.
The Germans (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider - worlds largest post company - Deutsche Post. The airline that carries the most passengers - Lufthansa. The Germans own a good many of the biggest companies in the auto industry. And Deutsche Telecom (which I believe includes T-Online) is one of the world's largest telecomms.
I think people fail to realise how powerful the German business sector is. If Germany was the same size of the USA, I'm sure it would be the top dog at the moment, not the USA. And now that the European European Union is creating the biggest single global market, Germany should be able to increase it's economy even further as it is at the heart of Europe.
Deutschland uber alles! (Score:3, Funny)
Go get 'em, Werner! Raus! Raus! Mach Schnell!
Q: Why are French roads lined with trees?
A: So the German army can match in the shade!
Re:The Germans (Score:3, Informative)
The only reason that G
Re:The Germans (Score:3, Funny)
Burns plays hardball, managing to repurchase the plant for only $50 million.
The Germans reluctantly agree...
Horst: [threatingly] We Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine.
Burns: [recoils in mock horror]
Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans!
[hiding behind Smithers] Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!
Horst: Stop it!
Man 2: Stop, sir.
Burns: Don't let the Germans come after me.
Oh no,
Re:The Germans (Score:3, Interesting)
All I can say is this:
German business is a blatant economic force to be reckoned with, if you're an American business. Germans are hot on your heels in pretty much every sector, and then some...
It is only after actually living here for a while that I've come to sense a value in the characterization of Germans by Americans.
The West is a Wilde place sometimes
Re:The Germans (Score:2)
Re:The Germans (Score:4, Insightful)
One problem with these figures is the exchange rate between Euro and the US$. 18 months ago, when one Euro was 0.86 US$, your figures were "correct".
Nowadays one Euro is woth about 1.15 US$. Suddenly the GDP measured in US$ per capita jumped up nearly 30%. So did germany close the gap while being in recession? No!
Another problem about the GDP is that the US (AFAIK) gives it an uplift due to the quality increase. This isn't done in Europe.
Regards, Martin
P.S. Let's not play "my ecconomy is bigger than yours". For my part, there are a lot of things, i think the US is doing better. But there are a lot of things too, i consider worse.
Parent
Re:The Germans (Score:4, Insightful)
So Britain went for the quick fix short term gains by throwing pretty much their entire social net out the window in the image of their masters across the pond. The Germans OTOH in their typical stubbornness and reluctance to change cling on to their economic model from the '80s, leading to respective blips and dips in the growth charts. Still, they're aware that change is required. I'd say wait another ten years before gloating. The '90s are hardly a solid economic barometer, lots of wanky business went on there (ahem, AOL?!). Besides, sooner or later the outrageous British defence spending is going to come home to roost. I'd say in the not-too-distant future "Operation Freedom" will show up as a big fat dip in the British bottom line, and some politicians will get a fair spanking.
Parent
Re:The Germans (Score:2)
Hey, don't give out the impression that the Germans are somehow an especially deserving case.
Don't forget the French, Italians, Americans, Australians, Spanish, Irish.
Re:The Germans (Score:2, Funny)
Funniest "fish" error ever (Score:3, Insightful)
Running AOL's profit/loss statements and investor reports through The Fish are about the only thing that could explain someone actually -wanting- AOL right now...
About the only thing I've ever found The Fish useful for was once confusing the crap out of a friend visiting Italy by making her think I 'spoke' formal Italian. That was good for a few days before another friend spoiled it and told her...
Hello? (Score:2)
While T-Online is profitable, Deutsche Telekom is not... I wonder (a) if T-Online has enough cash to buy AOL and (b) if European Authorities won't try to block this operation, given the size of the two companies...
Of course, if there are German Slashdot readers who have better info, I am ready to stand corrected!
Re:Hello? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure the European authorities would block the deal as T-online so far is almost completely restricted to activity in Germany while AOL has very few customers there, so a merger would not change the diversity in any market significantly... but it's still a big ris
Re:Hello? (Score:3, Insightful)
Right.
While T-Online is profitable, Deutsche Telekom is not...
Wrong. Deutsche Telekom [which has the 4 divisions T-Online (Internet), T-Mobile (cell phone service), T-Com (fixed line service, basically the German fixed line network), and T-Systems (something like extended IT services)] is quite profitable right now. They still have huge amount of depths though from the times they purchased expensive 3G UMTS licenses and bought Voicestream
english translation (Score:5, Informative)
"American Dream"
T-online has lots of money and high ambitions, one option is the take-over of AOL
For years it was a duel that electrified the internet public. Deutsche Telekom with T-online vs. the conqueror from the US: AOL.
The opponents used all means to fight for markets in europe, including law-suits, dumping prices and advertising campaigns. A Particular twist was added when the (german) media company Bertelsman headed by Thomas Middelhoff, worked together with the Americans.
Today, all has changed. Since Spring 2000 Bertelsmann is not involved with AOL anymore and Middelhoff is a partner with Investcorp in London.
He searches for investment opportunities in the entire world and has particularly good contacts to the US, where he is on the board of the NYT. From the deals of the 90s he still knows many people at Time Warner, who euphorically bought AOL 4 years ago but is now unhappy with the online-business.
Time Warner already dropped AOL from the name and are apparently thinking of seeling large parts of the company. The most likely candidate is according to sources of the SZ the T-online AG who has been striving for international expansion for a while, but not achieved its aims in this area.
One idea is for the germans to hold 80% of AOL shares while 30% stay with Time Warner, a cooperation that would change the media-landscape. It would happen due to the deal-making of Middelhoff.
It is the old Bertelsmann Boss and now Investment banker who has aided the talks between T-online and Time-Warner. Information from T-online sources suggest that a meeting between TW boss Richard PArsons and T-online Boss Thomas Holtrop has already occured.
The suggested price-tag is ~1 Bn Dollars. That's a long way away from the former astronomical valuations of the company once promoted by Middelhoff friend Steve Case.
At it's maximum AOL bought Time Warner for 112 Bn Dollar. Recently AOL lost customers, currently there are about 25 Million.
It woudl be easy for Holtorp and Col to pay for the deal. T-online still has 4 Bn Euros. This capital needs a targe so that publicly traded T-online corp can achieve its ambitious growth targets.
Middelhoff was not available for comment. A t-online spokes-person didn't want to commen on the rumours: "Every quarter we're asked "What are you doing with your money?"
Fundamentally there are two major parts of strategy. One is inorganic growth, by purchases and by waiting on consolidation of the market,.
A deal with AOL would have the particular advantage that T-online would get a foot-hold in the american market. Co-operations with sister-firm T-mobile are important as the companies work together on "T-Zones" where T-online supplise contents, which could be important for the US investments of T-mobile.
The Project AOL is top secret. A final decision has not been made. There are risks, in particular in terms of regulators. In Germany AOL never made major inroads. It is likely that after a merger AOL germany would disappear.
On Tuesday T-online has declared a quarterly profit for the first time. T-online now has 12.9 Mn customers, 9% more than last year. 4/5 of these live in Germany, so it's time for a jump. Yes, t-online is on the look-out says Holtrop, and it would not be years until he has something to announce...
Nein noch nicht (Score:2)
As if Bush and Wolfowitz wouldn't declare war on Germany... pfft ;)
Would be neat though to see that annoying little yellow man get replaced with a volks... Wait those beetles are just as annoying. Mercedes? Ok so we could turn the little man into a gangster with a gold chain emblem around his neck and have the rappers chip in on this...
Commercial with Master P scene one
ehhhhhhhhhh
Nope wouldn't cut it... Snoop?
foshizzlemahnizzleyougotsmailbizzle
Hrmm nah... JayZ?
A to the izzO...
Damnit all we have lef
NNNNooooooooo Not *that* jingle! (Score:4, Funny)
God I hate that jingle.
Simon
Not a big effect (Score:3, Insightful)
Disclosure: I work for a telecom company with a pretty successful ISP and wireless unit that obviously competes with both T-Mobile and AOL. This is my personal opinion, though, and I don't represent it as being that of my employer.
These two fit together well, if for no other reason than that they're both pretty bad about responding to security complaints. T-Online is notorious as a simultaneous source of scanning/exploit activity and a sink for abuse reports. AOL doesn't fare much better. Also, they'll probably end up keeping the brand name AOL since most of their customers could be easily confused by that sort of switch (most still don't know that Voicestream got bought by T-Mobile). So the sum effect of this would be that another company gets owned by Deutsche Telekom. Works for me: when I tell friends who really owns T-Mobile, more than one has decided they'd like to go with a domestic provider, even if it's not my employer.
My real question is, will Catherine Zeta Jones be in the new commercials? :)
The Register got the story (short).... (Score:4, Informative)
Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:3, Funny)
GERMANS:
D.Telekom CEO denies T-Online in talks on AOL (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, this should be good.... (Score:3, Interesting)
In contrast, though I may think AOL is nothing more than training wheels for the real Internet, I see maybe one or two spams a year from them, and the moron responsible quickly disappears once a report is made to AOL abuse.
Given these two obviously contrasting views, I think a buyout is going to be most interesting to watch. I wonder if Steve Case has taught himself German yet?
Blame babblefish (Score:4, Funny)
Write to your congress critter to stop this! (Score:4, Funny)
Tell him or her that you don't want to see any further loss of American jobs in important sectors of the economy -- like producing endlessly wasteful sign-up CD-ROMs, policing the speech of adults as if they were children, and shoveling load after load of unwanted ads down the throat of miserable subscribers!
(P.S. Dear Germans: would you mind buying Microsoft, too?)
AOL, from loss to loss (Score:3, Informative)
Now they're in decline. Why would anyone want to acquire them, except as a distressed company? Their "content"? Yeah, right.
Re:Why would anyone want to buy AOL? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, first off, T-Online sure is making money and this whould be a way of buying a huge amount of customers. T-Online wants to grow and will have a hard time doing so by just attracting new customers, must people are online somewhere allready, so it's either convincing people to switch to T-Online wich will costs loads of marketing money and will require massive
Re:T-Online related to T-Mobile? (Score:2, Informative)
Yepp. Both companies are part of Deutsche Telekom. (T-Mobile 100%, T-Online 75%).
See the Deutsche Telekom site [telekom3.de]for more info.