The link you that provided makes me think about another turbulence might surface soon for ATHM. Let's see…
On the bottom of yesterday CBS article we have this little extract...
Asked by CBS.MarketWatch.com if AtHome Excite would do a deal with America Online to broaden its content and subscriber base, Jermoluk said the Internet player was "open" to talks
Here comes the new headache for ATHMers...
Excite@Home and AOL reached an agreement to allow AOL members to access its pipe with no more than $5/month extra
Possible outcome: This actually is a good contract to milk AOL, NOT. ATHM didn't get too much out of this deal because most AOL users already used to the AOLwide wait. ATHM had to put ads on NetZero to give special deal to talk users out of leaving their AOL accounts with “Bring your AOL email to broadband with 10% off.” Steve Case was exhilarated anyway, he climbed up to a pile of contracts which were signed with every possible infrastructure and hardware players, and laid the cable contract on the very top and told the board members the last and most important piece of puzzle has finally put in place. At the same time...
Marc Andreessen, the $10 billion boy, rushed in, waiving software, and shouting "This is the greatest version of Netscape browser ever."... "If you can spend a billion or two to buy this and that and integrate with Communicator, we can bury Internet Explorer!" Six months later, Gates demoted Ballmer for failing IE7. One the same day, Yahoo announced the best browser for its next generation web site is the indisputable New Communicator (download for free). The news shocked the whole world, as Steve busy talking to WSJ, BW, and Fortune about the possibility to topple Microsoft, and AOL keep smashing all time high every day for the exciting news, Yahoo is quietly adding continents and countries to the bottom of www.yahoo.com...
Europe: Denmark - France - Germany - Italy - Norway - Spain - Sweden - UK & Ireland
Pacific Rim: Asia - Australia & NZ - Chinese - HK - Japan - Korea - Singapore - Taiwan
Americas: Brazil - Canada – Spanish
For the following four years, Case found himself playing golf with nobody but Mr. bells, including the reborn mombell, He felt so sick of it because he had to managed to loose most the games for the bells' golfing skill is so pathetic. And yes, AOL stock hit all time high again because it just signed a free PC deal with DELL – contracts just won't stop piling and AOL PC is everywhere. At Yahoo, Yang looked at the bottom his home page and asking Filo… "Where the heck is this Republic of Zambia?"
I think the free PC deal will be just another nail to the coffin. I can assure you AOL will keep signing contracts and buying nails.
|
