AOL AND MICROSOFT

Presentation by; Amaljith N.K 15386040

AOL Inc. (simply known as AOL, originally known as America Online, stylized as Aol.) is an American multinational mass media corporation based in New York, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications.

AOL was one of the early pioneers of the internet in the mid-1990s, and the most recognized brand on the web in the U.S.

1983-91: EARLY YEARS AOL began in 1983, as a

short-lived venture called Control Video Corporation (CVC), founded by Bill von Meister.

Its sole product was an online service called  GameLine, a service that hook your phone line to rent games for $1.

1991–2006: INTERNET AGE, TIME WARNER MERGER

1991 to 2006 they launched many pay-based online services and multi-player online games like ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ and ‘Never winter Nights’ from Storm front Studios.

At the height of its popularity, it purchased the media corporation Time Warner in the largest merger in U.S. History.

2006–09: REBRANDING AND DECLINE

On April 3, 2006, AOL announced it was retiring the full name America Online; the official name of the service became AOL, and the full name of the Time Warner subdivision became AOL LLC.

On September 17, 2007, AOL announced it was moving one of its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia, to New York City and combining its various advertising units into a new subsidiary.

This action followed several advertising acquisitions, most notably Advertising.com, and highlighted the company's new focus on advertising-driven business models.

In December 2006, AOL closed their last remaining call centre in the United States, "taking the America out of America Online" according to industry pundits. Service centres based in India and the Philippines continue to this day to provide customer support and technical assistance to subscribers.

Things go sour almost from the get-go: company cultures don’t mix, broadband Internet eats up America Online’s customers. And it destroyed the company’s stock worth from $226 billion to $20 billion. Thus begins the fall of America Online. 

2009–15: AS A DIGITAL MEDIA COMPANY

On March 12, 2009, Tim Armstrong, formerly with Google, was named Chairman and CEO of AOL. Shortly thereafter, on May 28, TimeWarner announced it would spin off AOL as an independent company.

AOL bought The Huffington Post for $315 million

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

AOL's products and services are in the following areas:

Content

Advertising

Membership

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Since spinning off from Time Warner in 2010, AOL has made CSR an important part of its mission. In its company values, AOL states, "We are in the business of helping people, period.”

Each year on the company's birthday, AOL employees around the world are invited to participate in Monster Help Day.

Other CSR initiatives include producing cause-related content for AOL properties; donating PSA campaigns throughout the AOL network; empowering consumers through cause-related contests and initiatives; implementing a permanent cause module on AOL's homepage, dedicated to promoting non profit organizations.

CONTROVERSY

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong came under fire by outraged employees after he singled out the sick babies of two women at the company for increasing the cost of health benefits. Armstrong explained that the sick babies forced AOL to dole out millions in medical expenses on a company-wide conference call.

He blamed higher health care costs and then said:  "We had two AOL workers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid $1 million each to make sure those babies were OK in general.“

“Distressed babies” comment

Tim Amstrong

ALL IN ONE PLATFORM

In January 2016 AOL has developed an offering that gives publishers a way to monetize their work without having to use tools from multiple companies.

Called One by AOL: Publishers, it consolidates the company’s portfolio of services into a single package that provides audience engagement, analytics, content distribution, and revenue management all in one place.

Microsoft corporation is an American multi national software corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing.

The company was founded by Bill gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975.

Microsoft is the world’s largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world’s most valuable company.

TIMELINE 1975 Microsoft founded 1995 Internet by launching internet explorer a web browser. 2001 Microsoft launches Office XP, Windows XP and Xbox 2007 Microsoft launches Windows Vista and the 2007

Microsoft Office System to consumers worldwide. 2009 Microsoft launches Bing search engine 2011 Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion. 2013 Microsoft acquired Nokia in an attempt to expand its

presence in mobile. 2014 Microsoft appoints Satya Nadella as CEO, and its stock

starts recovering again. Microsoft releases Windows 10. 2016 Microsoft announces the acquisition of LinkedIn at

$26.2 billion  

ABOUT In 1980, Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM that

allowed them to bundle Microsoft’s operating system with IBM computers, paying Microsoft a royalty for every sale.

In 1985, IBM requested that Microsoft write a new operating system for their computers called OS/2.

When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft windows in the 1990s they had captured over 90% market share of the world’s personal computers.

The company has now become largely successful.

PRODUCTS OF MICROSOFT

Operating systems Office suits Xbox for games Internet explorer Search engine Mail’s Security Servers Cloud storage device Visual studio Calling device

POLITICAL FACTORS

Most notably, Microsoft has attracted the attention of governments and political parties due to antitrust-related issues. A recent probe by China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce into the ways Microsoft distributes its Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player and sells its Office and Windows software in China can be mentioned as a relevant example of impact of a political factor.

The political conditions also impact Microsoft in the sense that European Union fined Microsoft in 2004 to take out its media player version from European’s Windows version (General Environment, 2014).

Microsoft (along with Google, Yahoo, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and other companies) has cooperated with the Chinese government in implementing a system of Internet censorship.

Human rights advocates such as Human Rights Watch and media groups such as Reporters Without Borders criticized the companies, noting for example that it is "ironic that companies whose existence depends on freedom of information and expression have taken on the role of censor."

CRITICISMS

CENSORSHIP IN CHINA

WEBSITE CONCERNS

Polish users of Microsoft's Business Productivity Infrastructure website have noticed a white model's face has been photoshopped over the head of the African American model at centre in the photograph on the main page of the Polish language version of the website. The website 'Photoshop Disasters' covered the story on 25 August 2009.

As of 1:00 A.M. GMT on 25 August, this has been changed and the image on the Polish website now reflects the image on the English website. Microsoft later issued an apology regarding the incident.

Sincere apologies - we're in the process of taking down the image.

CRITICISM OF WINDOWS VISTA

Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft in November 2006, has been criticized by reviewers and users.

Due to issues with privacy, security, performance, driver support and product activation, Windows Vista has been the subject of a number of negative assessments by various groups.

GOOGLE VS BING

When Google came out and said that Microsoft's search engine Bing was copying its results, many were not surprised. Only when side-by-side comparisons were made did it become clear that Google may have been right.

Microsoft said that it had not copied results, but Google had already set up the 'Bing sting' which was designed to prove that Microsoft had done so. It turned out that indeed Bing had been copying search results by "watching" what people search for on Google, the search giant said.

THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

Blue Screen of Death is an error screen displayed on a Windows computer system after a fatal system error, also known as a system crash: when the operating system reaches a condition where it can no longer operate safely.

The Blue Screen of Death was displayed for 2 hours during the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony.

2 billion people saw the infamous error screen at the event, which had cost $100 million.

UNDER NEW CEO

Appointment of new CEO Satya Nadella on February 4, 2015 is seen by many as an opportunity for the company to revive its role and significance in the global market.

Introduction of Office on iPad which led to 35 million downloads becoming a popular application on Apple App Store, record commercial cloud revenues of $4.4 billion.

Introduction of Cortana, a virtual assistant built into Windows Phone 8.1 can be interpreted as positive changes that occurred since the appointment of the new CEO.

Microsoft mission states that it wants to become the world leading innovative technology producer that able to help it’s diverse customer around the globe to realize their potential.

Apart from producing the windows operating system, Microsoft is also providing a series of effective and useful business office suit such as Microsoft office, Bing, Skype and so on. These lead Microsoft to be dominant in the software and programming industry.

Meanwhile, Microsoft also becomes active at other industries in recent years. For instance; it has participated in video game industry in the early 2000s by introducing Xbox. Besides, Microsoft has also been involving itself in the mobile phone industry and attempt to occupy a certain market share by using it’s windows phone.

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