AOL Time Warner
On December 14, 2000, the Federal Trade Commission approved the planned merger of AOL and Time Warner after both companies pledged to “protect consumer choice” both now and in the future. The AOL Time Warner merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on January 11, 2001, and is the biggest merger in corporate history, then estimated at a total market value of $350 billion. The merger created a ‘powerhouse’ of new and traditional media. AOL Time Warner has led the union of the media, entertainment, communications and Internet industries. Throughout the years the face of media and entertainment industries has changed drastically as a result of increased technology. The popularity of newspapers gave way to other forms of media and entertainment such as magazines, television, cable, music, and most recently the Internet.
The Internet boom of the 1990’s gave rise to the popularity of America Online AOL and Time Warner saw themselves at a crossroads where old and new media would become one. The histories of both AOL and Time Warner are extensive and have not always been successful. Time Warner itself was created by two mega-mergers. The first merger was in 1989 between Time Inc., publisher of many magazines such as Time Magazine, and Warner Communications. Both companies have histories stretching as far back as 75 years or so. In 1996, this company merged with Turner Broadcasting, which brought CNN with its founder Ted Turner. These two mergers created a company ready to lead in any form of media. The company launched the HBO television network. Time Warner, headquartered in New York, had $27.3 billion in revenues in 1999 and a market value of $112.6 billion. On the other side of the merger there is new media giant AOL, today the biggest, richest, and most successful internet company in the world. It was founded in 1985 as Quantum Computer Services and by 1994, after changing its name, had a million subscribers. In its early years, it almost fell because of the problems associated with introducing unlimited access for a fixed monthly fee. As its number of users increased, so did its capacity problems, which made many customers angry because they could not get a connection. The problem was solved when AOL made a deal with MCI WorldCom, which led merge with its rival CompuServe.
In 1998, AOL acquired Netscape for $4 billion in a deal that knocked off its rival Microsoft.
Founded in 1966 and based in Calgary, Shaw Communications is a Canadian telecommunications company that provides telephone, Internet and television services as well as mass media related services. The Company operated through three principal business segments such as Cable, consisted of cable television, Internet, Digital Phone and Shaw Business operations. Satellite, consisted of direct-to-home (DTH) and Satellite Services. Lastly media consisted of television broadcasting. Shaw Media operates as conventional television networks in Canada, Global Television, and numerous specialty networks. It provides customers with entertainment, information and communications services, utilizing a variety of distribution
Washington Post,. (2014). Comcast, Time Warner agree to merge in $45 billion deal. Retrieved 18 May 2014, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/comcast-time-warner-agree-to-merge-in-45-billion-deal/2014/02/13/7b778d60-9469-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html
Robert Zimmerman, the senior vice president of business development, for American Cable Communications (ACC) was in the process of looking for a potential acquisition target for ACC. In December 2007, Zimmerman remember a presentation that was made recently by Rubinstein & Ross (R&R). R&R was a boutique investment bank that was well known for doing deals in the media and telecommunications area. During this presentation it was suggested that ACC buy out AirThread Connections (AirThread) which is a large regional cellular provider. The current industry of these companies were moving more toward bundled service offerings and by adding AirThread it would help ACC cover an area of service it does not currently offer. In order to determine if the acquisition should be done an analysis needs to be done.
Television, the phone, and the internet. These inventions have uniquely shaped the 20th century and have led to the 21st century being known as the age of information. These services are the primary ways we communicate, express ourselves, and reach out in our ever increasing global world. In the United States, these services are provided by a number of different firms, chief among them is Comcast, being the largest provider of Cable and internet in America, and a large telephone provider. Next to it stands Time Warner Cable, the second largest provider of cable in the United States. The decision for Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable for forty-five billion dollars in 2014 has led to many criticizing the merger, calling it a monopoly. Others have called the whole cable system an oligopoly. For it to be a monopoly or an oligopoly, it would have to fit their respective categories. The merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable would not create a true monopoly, but would give it significant market power because it has monopoly resources and can be considered a natural monopoly. It will also further its power in a market dominated by oligopolies. People argue that it is not a danger to Americans for this merger to happen, but when one looks at the practices Comcast already uses, it paints
Years later, the Telecommunication Act of 1996 triggered dramatic changes in the competitive landscape. SBC Communications Inc. established itself as a global communications provider by acquiring Pacific Telesis Group and becoming the new AT&T. The merger of AT& T and BellSouth, along with the ownership consolidation of Cingular Wireless and YELLOWPAGES.COM, will speed convergence, competition and continued innovation in the communications and entertainment industry, creating new solutions for consumers and businesses and positioned to lead the industry in one of its most signifi...
The world is experiencing a communications revolution. The Internet, e-Commerce and other developments (including the convergence of communication technologies) are profoundly reshaping economic and social life. AT&T must position itself to meet the challenge of this revolution. The strategic development of information-based industries is a key to the future social and economic development of the world.
The year is 1952 and a young John Rigas purchased a cable company for a mere $300 in Coudersport, Pennsylvania with high hopes of building the company into a successful family owned and operated business (AICPA, 2005, para. 3); a business that would remain unparallel to the rest of its competition. In the late 1990s his dreams came to fruition; John Rigas, along with a few close family members and investors, purchased Century Communications for $5.2 billion and merged the companies together becoming the 6th largest cable company serving more than 5.6 million subscribers (AICPA, 2005, para. 4). Ensuring that the majority of Adelphia’s voting stock and control of the board remained in the hands of f...
Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an organization which delivers the content over the Internet. It is one of the largest organizations which provide the distributive Computing Platforms; it provides a cloud based services to the end user. It serves 30% of the overall web traffic. Akamai provided numbers of servers which are located all over the globe and stores the web application of the clients. It provides a faster access to those applications because of the distributive contents in to various servers around the world. Akamai does not want the long routes to it distributed the data based on the locations, it works as like a work or a task which is not possible to be completed by a single persons is divided in to multiple process or threats or assign to teams to complete their individual part, so that task can be complete faster, in the same way the contents are stored at different servers based on their access mechanism.
In helping avert the threat in the area of development of web services (such as .NET), Microsoft has offered to support partners and developers of programs to the tune of $2 billion. This may provide some incentive to programmers; however, the results remain to be seen. In the search business for Microsoft MSN to compete with Google and Yahoo, Microsoft spent approximately $200 million in advertising. In addition to pure Internet searching, Microsoft is developing the search functionality to take place across the Windows platform.
In 1994, Marc Anderseen invented a new way to search and retrieve information from the Internet: the Netscape Navigator. Netscape’s rising sales and the phenomenal growth of the Internet make its shares go through the roof and even before the Company had any profit; it was valued at $2.7 billion. However, the scenario didn’t go that well for so long and a very powerful and ambitious man came into the picture. Bill Gates put 2,000 of his best programmers to create a browser of his own: The Explorer. The battle of the browsers officially started; Microsoft’s share of the browser market increased from 2.9 percent at the end of 1995 to more than 40 percent by the end of 1997, while Netscape’s market share fell to 54 percent.
Reed Hastings (co-founded) founded Netflix in 1997. During this time, Netflix offered DVD rentals by mail. As Netflix went public in 2002, shortly a year later their subscription reached the one million mark (Netflix Management, 2011). Recently, Netflix is recognized as one of the 50 most innovative companies, ranking number eight for “streaming itself into a $9 billion powerhouse (and crushing Blockbuster)” with 20 million subscribers (fastcompany.com, 2011). This success shows how Netflix embraced a business approach where their mission was to take the troublesome experience of everyday consumers and transform them into a business opportunity. Below illustrates how Netflix rank in other categories.
Google is a multi-billionaire company that was founded by Larry Paige and Sergey Brinn in September 1998. Google housed more than 40,000 employees and it is now still increasing. In 2014, the company has 53,600 employees. There are several products created by Google, some of the well-known are Google Search, Google Scholar and Google App.
The idea inspired Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, and then they founded Netflix in Scotts Valley, California in 1997 (Netflix, 2014). The company comes into play by developing a subscription-based streaming platform for movies and television shows. Unlike the traditional movie rental businesses such as Blockbuster and Redbox, Netflix’s innovation offers service via Internet, and it does not have any physical stores but instead delivers DVDs through postal mail in the U.S. Since then, Netflix has become the world’s leading internet television network with constant growth of customers to over 48 millions members in more than 40 countries in the North America, Europe, and the Latin America (Netflix, 2014). In this analysis, the main focus is examining the current market environment for Netflix. It identifies the type of market structure that Netflix is currently competing. The analysis also expands on the competitions, product differentiation, pricing strategy, and measuring the level of easy entry-and-exit.
Prior to 1995, AOL was very successful in the commercial online industry relative to its competitors CompuServe and Prodigy primarily because of its pricing rate structure which was the easiest for customers to understand and plan for ahead of time. CompuServe and Prodigy offered the same pricing as AOL for its standard service, but, charged additional fees for premium services and downloading which made it more difficult for customers to anticipate their monthly spending.
The nature of research instruments, the sampling plan and the type of data the research design constitutes the blueprint for the collection, the measurement and analysis of data. It aids the researcher in the allocation of his limited resources by posing crucial choices.