Aol.com Pages: 105 - 170

Summary:

            As Bill Gates was now in the war with AOL he partnered with an online service called Marvel.  It was going to be designed as an “AOL killer” in taking over much of the popularity AOL got with its new programs within its system. Ted Leonsis, a partner with Steve Case in running AOL made all of the employees interested in their new mission of not letting Microsoft dominate their territory. They started off my expanding their company and buying other small companies that would be to their benefit right under Microsoft’s noses by offering to pay more money. They wanted their company to be very well know, just as how Coca-Cola bottles are everywhere you go, they wanted AOL to have the same effect on costumers.  While they are planning this Microsoft is on to some very cool developments.

            Microsoft wanted to create a system where the costumers would be able to use an online service with the purchase of Windows 95 computer. Since Microsoft had many users, AOL was overwhelmed by the fact that they would be getting a lot of costumers throughout the unveiling of this product. This new system would be called The Microsoft Network also known as “MSN” and was said to being able to attract millions of new subscribers when it is launched.

AOL was seriously trying to compete with this determined company, and they did their best to try to make their system as efficient as possible. When “MSN” was finally released, AOL employees waited in anticipation to see what the outcome would be. Instead of the projected “millions of subscribers”, Microsoft raked in 100,000 new users in the first week and it turned into 190,000 by the end of the first week. After that great start, growth started to become very slow due to the lack of advertising on Microsoft’s part. In celebration they rented a blimp over festivities highlighting that AOL would always be “hovering over them”.

To make matters even more “weird” AOL, after a while made a partnership with Microsoft because it seemed that they each had what the other wanted. After the partnership was announced, AOL’s stocks rose even more. Things were looking really good for AOL. They were expanding their company and at the same time they were developing more skills to make their company one of the best, and on May 30 1996 they announced that they broke the six-million-member mark, making them the largest online provider on the entire globe.

Quote:

‘“I underestimated us and overestimated the competition”’ (Swisher 128).

Reaction:

Whether it’s a about a company or yourself, underestimating yourself is never a good thing. You should never believe that you are unable to do something, especially if you haven’t tried it yourself. When AOL believed that just because Microsoft was owned by one of the richest men in the world, they thought that it would mean that he would have the better services automatically. But that wasn’t true, in fact in the end AOL was the company that came up with the better ideas and was also successful. This proves the well-known saying, “never doubt yourself” and in this case, the company.