At almost $4 billion in market cap, a potential acquirer would probably need to offer $5 to $6 billion to take over the company. There are very few organizations that are able to raise this kind of cash, and no organization without extensive technical expertise and/or media expertise is going to even consider taking on the liability given the risk inherent in this company's unproven business model.
That leaves AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Microsoft, IBM, Time-Warner/Turner, Sony, Disney... Maybe a few more. The phone networks can't produce content, and the content companies have no experience in managing billion dollar networks. None of these companies really has the set of leadership skills needed to make an AOL work, with the possible exception of Microsoft. But Microsoft is not going to invest $5 billion in MSN without it showing a profit, let alone taking over AOL, which is still bleeding money. An acquisition requires compatibility between the two parties. There are only two firms in this business besides AOL and MSN: Prodigy, and Compuserve. Neither are in a takeover position. Disney is preparing its own network and will not fork out the money for AOL.
A takeover is always a possibility. At this juncture, I would consider it unlikely. The risk is big and likely suitors are few.
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