A couple of interesting developments this past week at AOL. As many of you are either aware of or have been expecting, yesterday the company flipped the switch to change AOL into a free service for members who already have existing internet access. New members who join now get to choose between the free plan and an unlimited dialup plan that costs $9.99 per month.
What interest me are two things that have not been addressed by any of the articles I have read. First, will existing dialup customers who previously were paying $23.95 per month have their rates automatically discounted to $9.99 per month? Second, will AOL members who qualify for the free plan but are currently on a prepaid plan get the unused portion of their money back? But wait a minute, as I am typing this it dawned on me there is a third (and much more interesting) issue that has yet to be addressed. When AOL launched Netscape Online, Netscape Online was positioned as “the fighting brand” where the traditional AOL service remained as the premium brand. Now that the prices of the two services are at parity, does this spell the end of Netscape Online?
Hopefully this is a sign that AOL is finally beginning to make its decisions based on anticipating where the internet industry is heading. I was delighted to read that starting September, AIM and AOL members will get 5GB of free online storage at Xdrive, an online storage company AOL purchased last year. I remember when I worked at AOL I heard about a project called A-Disk, which I assumed was an online file storage system. I am curious as to what type of discussion took place that resulted in the decision to purchase the technology instead of developing it internally. One of the things that technology companies have to constantly deliberate is whether it’s best to acquire a technology by developing it internally from scratch, purchasing a company that already has it, or hiring the services of another company. Hopefully these are issues I will get to learn about at Kenan-Flagler next year because I am sure it’s something I have to deal with at some point in my career.
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