America Online LLC (commonly known as AOL) is an American global Internet services and media company operated by Time Warner. It is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York, NY.[2][3] Founded in 1983 as Quantum Computer Services, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services.[4]
AOL is best known for its online software suite, also called "AOL", that allowed millions of customers around the world to access the world's largest "walled garden" online community and eventually reach out to the internet as a whole. At its zenith, AOL's membership was over 30 million members worldwide,[5] most of whom accessed the AOL service through the AOL software suite.
On May 28, 2009, Time Warner announced that it would spin off AOL into a separate public company by the end of 2009, ending the 8 year relationship between the two companies. [6]
With regional branches around the world, the former American "goliath among Internet service providers"[5] once had more than 30 million subscribers[5] on several continents. In January 2000, AOL and Time Warner announced plans to merge. The terms of the deal negotiated called for AOL shareholders to own 55% of the new, combined company. The deal closed on January 11, 2001 after receiving regulatory approval from the FTC, the FCC and the European Union.
America Online, Inc., as the company was then called, was led by executives from AOL, SBI and Time Warner. Gerald Levin, who had served as CEO of Time Warner, was CEO of the new company. Steve Case served as Chairman, J. Michael Kelly (from AOL) was the Chief Financial Officer, Robert W. Pittman (from AOL) and Dick Parsons (from Time Warner) served as Co-Chief Operating Officers. The total value of AOL stock subsequently went from $226 billion to about $20 billion.[7] Similarly, its customer base has decreased to 10.1 million subscribers as of November 2007,[8] just narrowly ahead of Comcast and AT&T Yahoo!.
AOL is a company in transition, made evident by discussions of buy-outs and joint ventures during a period of dramatic decline in AOL's subscriber base.[5][neutrality disputed]
News reports in late 2005 identified companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google as candidates for turning AOL into a joint venture;[9] those plans were apparently abandoned when it was revealed on December 20, 2005 that Google would purchase a 5% share of AOL for $1 billion.
AOL was rated both one of the best and worst Internet suppliers in the UK, according to a poll by BBC Watchdog.[10]
On March 31, 1997, the short lived eWorld was purchased by AOL, forcing the 115,000 users to subscribe to AOL. The ISP side of AOL UK was bought by The Carphone Warehouse in October 2006 to take advantage of their 100,000 LLU customers which made The Carphone Warehouse the biggest LLU provider in the UK.[11]
On May 28, 2009,[12] Time Warner decided to cease operations with AOL, and will spin it off as an independent company once Google's shares cease at the end of the fiscal year.[13]
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