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To: Mohan Marette who wrote (131881)	6/8/1999 11:58:00 PM
From: edamo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

mohan...aol much more than an isp..it is a cult like community, that in many ways it prevents access to the www, as it is not fully compatible, aol entirely useless if you want to do more than socialize and read the content that they put in your face...but the masses adore it..hey "you got mail"...that's what aol all about..17m subscribers at 19.95 month....it is all the average person needs..fool proof to use...and you can talk online via instant messages with your circle of friends, even informs you when they log on...hate the service but it is more a communications/entertainment concept than a straight isp...

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (131881)	6/9/1999 10:05:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

mohan - AOL is the "stickiest" provider in the business - one of the managers of MSN said that "no one can take customers from AOL - not us, not anyone". The reasons are a number of features in the interface that go well beyond ISP services. And AOL continues to leverage that franchise. edamo is right - it is a "cult". you have to see it to believe it. Teenagers, young adults, retired folks - and all for different reasons. I see DELL's ISP play in Europe as a pure marketing tool, just another incentive to get people to try DELL. Especially given DELL's relatively weak performance in the European market, they need to do something. There are a number of "free internet" offers happening in Europe at the moment. Unfortunately for most European users, these are not "FREE" as they would be in the states, since the local phone providers charge by the "click" (some number of seconds of use) even for local calls. So local phone charges in Europe are much greater than ISP charges in the US, and free internet service will not change that. That is one of the reasons for the lower internet penetration in that market.