Michael:
And their mail service SUCKS! Not only are you unable to use a real mail program like Outlook, many AOL recepeints cannot open some jpeg, gif, etcs sent from people with real mail service.
And for the crappy proprietary service, you pay 10% more than the most expensive telephone ISP. My DSL is only $50 per month and in affect it includes an additional phone line making it about same price as AOSmell. Cable offers the same $50 ish per month (or less) and also eliminates the need for the other phone line.
Not only is AOL gonna get hammered from MSFT's free service, but DELL, GTW, and most of the others are bundling service with PCs. Lastly, does anyone really think HP, E-machines, and every one else is giving away their machines for $400 less with a $800 (3 year) ISP contract? Heck no, that's AOL ($800), Prodigy ($720), & Compuserve ($720) who are subsidizing the PC purchase.
At $92 bil, AOL offers an enormous downside risk with much less upside potential (er: hope) - IMO. |
