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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...?
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To: Bill Earthman who wrote (410)10/28/1996 12:21:00 AM
From: Kashish King   of 13594
 
Man to Earth Bill...

One of the problems I'm seeing is that we're using terms that aren't even defined. So let's stipulate that an ISP is someone with a very high-speed connection to the internet that you pay for access. We are talking about communications services that speak the language of the internet and thereby provide a physical connection to the global network. Who provides that service and whether they survive isn't relevant to the question of AOL's continued existence.

As far as whether we use the internet, there is no vote, it happens now. This worldwide standard is the future of communications and at a minimum AOL will need to abandon its hoaky dialup model along with its proprietary and vastly inferior communications protocols.

So we have put that to rest. Any and all online services will utilize the internet just as telephone, television and radio all use standard protocols for transmitting and receiving information. What is left is the actual information services and the software used to access that information. The information provided by Compuserve, Prodigy and AOL has a great deal of value and that information can be migrated onto internet servers without much trouble.

The final piece of the puzzle are the ActiveX and Java applications which armies of developers will use to transform the experience of internet access into that of using an CD based encylopedia or similar product. AOL ignores these developments at its own peril.

Apparently Prodigy has chosen not to ignore the crashingly obvious as they will provide an unlimited access, $20 per month, totally internet based service. You can read all about that next week and I suspect AOL's arm-waving will be somewhat muted by those events.
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