Robert Mahowald Aol Quotations

Up until now, AOL has been able to pick and choose its partners, command the royalties it wants. They've moved to develop this market at their own pace. This forces them to take a more aggressive stance.

The chances are good for AOL to succeed here because its definition of success won't be the same as it is for Microsoft or even Yahoo. What AOL wants is wide use of business clients connected to its worldwide user base, and to make money off that.

I think what's really pushing this is Microsoft's ability to see that it's long been playing cat and mouse with AIM and ICQ (another AOL instant messaging service). Microsoft needs to stake its presence in a big way.