AOL Announces New VoIP Offering (That Probably Didn't Cost $4.1 Billion)
from the voip-hype dept
AOL has
announced its consumer VoIP offering: which comes off sounding
like a cross between Skype and Vonage. They’ve beefed up the
VoIP capabilities of AIM, and inegrated the IM client with a
broadband phone service that — unlike SkypeOut — doesn’t force
subscribers to make all their calls through a PC. While Skype makes
PC-to-PC calls easy, SkypeOut doesn’t easily integrate with the home
phone people are used to using. AOL’s figured all this out without
dropping $4 billion, and has a much clearer plan than Skype to
actually make money. If eBay wants to turn Skype into a phone
company, it’s unclear why they needed to drop so much cash. If they
plan to just use it to add voice service to their auctions, it’s, um,
unclear why they needed to drop so much cash. Of course, at the same time, it’s still not clear why AOL appears to be launching a product that competes with their sister company, Time Warner Cable, who already offers a popular VoIP offering. Why not have the two work together?
Comments on “AOL Announces New VoIP Offering (That Probably Didn't Cost $4.1 Billion)”
No Subject Given
Maybe to see which one would be a better plan.
Re: No Subject Given
Or maybe because they’re well aware that AOL is about ready to be tossed on its ass unless it can show some serious contributions to Time-Warner.
Re: Re: No Subject Given
Actually AOL throws a lot into Time Warner’s coffers – it’s a classic cash cow.
No Subject Given
Time Warner’s VOIP is tied to their cable division, and is very different. You use your old phones and wiring and can’t take your phone and use your VOIP on trips like you can with VOnage. AOL’s plan is similar to Vonage’s.
So it wouldn’t have made sense to tie the two together. Besides if AOL gets sold, they would need to sell the new service along with AOL.