Back To 1995: Chapter 840 hole

  Chapter 840 Hole

Just looking at the ICQ after the acquisition of the Bronfman Group, it is indeed the prototype of an empire. It has more than 100 million Internet users around the world, and has two American TV groups, ICNC and NBC, plus Comcast TV Network. There are 86 million TV subscribers in America, and over 12 million overseas subscribers.

In addition, it also has complete production capabilities and distribution channels for movies and TV dramas. It does not need to purchase copyrights from the outside world. ICQ’s internal Universal Pictures and Universal Music can supply them. ICQ also owns American Telecom, the world’s largest broadband telecommunications company. Companies, subscriber lines ICQ can supply their own!

  No matter how you look at it, the ICQ empire has been initially established, and it is much stronger than AOL Time Warner.

When rumors of mergers and acquisitions spread, major institutions and analysts on Wall Street were imagining the scene after the empire was built. In the future, a user would go from installing broadband, to making friends online, to browsing TV stations, searching for TV dramas, variety shows, and watching movies in cinemas. , mobile Internet, phone calls, entertainment and communication needs in life, ICQ can meet all of them.

There is a saying in Bangzi that people in Bangzi cannot live without life and death and paying taxes. Now, as long as American people surf the Internet, watch TV, and use the Internet, they seem to be inseparable from ICQ. Such an invisible giant company, An Is there any reason not to make money?

  Anyway, even an ordinary person can feel that ICQ's future performance will explode.

This made the stock prices of ICQ and ICQ’s major shareholder, General Electric, take off directly in place. The stock price of General Electric hit the 500 billion mark, and ICQ hit the threshold of the 400 billion dollar club. .

When everyone thinks that something is valuable, even if it is a scrap of copper, it can make people fall into a frenzy. ICQ has this trend now. Shouting "The market value of trillions of dollars is no longer a dream", the leeks regard it as a delicacy, and they all count on it to make a lot of money!

  While countless people were shouting crazily for the ICQ stock price, the conference room of AOL Time Warner was completely silent.

  The carnival of ICQ is still going on, and AOL Time Warner has a lot of feathers after a short-lived highlight.

If the internal disputes in ICQ can still maintain superficial skills under Irene's suppression, then the battle between AOL and Time Warner has become public. The executives of AOL and Time Warner are now impatient with each other. Get used to the other party's style and work habits.

AOL despises Time Warner’s old-fashioned people. A matter can be processed in AOL in only 30 minutes. In Time Warner, it has to go through countless people’s signatures, reviews, and a series of procedures, which make AOL’s people wait tirelessly. .

Time Warner believes that AOL has no rules at all, and dare to imagine that the employees of a giant company with a market value of more than 300 billion US dollars have no fixed time to and from work, financial expenditures are chaotic, and they have little interest in technology. They would rather spend a large amount of marketing expenses on advertising , are unwilling to deal with the calls from users, which completely subverts Time Warner's imagination.

These are just frictions between ordinary employees on both sides. In fact, what is more critical is who is in charge of AOL Time Warner. This is the key, although Jerry Levine was in charge of AOL when the agreement was first signed. Time Warner's media and Internet business, Case is in charge of technology, public relations department.

But in fact, when it comes to the critical moment, who is willing to give up the rights in his hands, even if Case is willing, the original group of AOL executives will not agree to be replaced by Time Warner people, this is human nature, Don't depend on anyone's will!

   "President Case, I need to know what happened to AOL. How do you explain AOL's first quarter results?"

Jerry Levine was a little bit overwhelmed, and asked Case, AOL and Time Warner postponed the first quarter performance report, really, too suddenly, AOL Time Warner's financial department calculated the first quarter performance, unexpectedly It was down 15%.

  Not only did it fail to meet the expectations before the merger, but it actually declined. Coupled with the fact that the two sides are fighting for power and profit, this is the reason for today's "three trials", which happened to take advantage of AOL's performance to attack Case.

  Case's expression was as usual, and he didn't show any panic at all, although the moment he received the report, Case didn't fall asleep all night.

AOL seems to have a dazzling variety of businesses, with dozens of departments, but the most important revenue has two parts, one is advertising fees, and the other is dial-up Internet services. The latter is equivalent to AOL's cash cow, which can support Since AOL various mergers and acquisitions.

But the strange thing is that since this year, Internet advertising fees have started to decrease. Not only AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, Lycos and other companies are also facing the same problem, but more or less, and it has only been a few months. Not too obvious yet.

The most important thing is that the speed of broadband popularization is much faster than AOL expected. Except for American Telecom, the rest of the telecom groups, even WorldCom, are planning to play broadband and give up dial-up Internet access. It is conceivable What is the situation in this industry? Dial-up Internet users will not disappear immediately, but obviously they will not increase.

Knowing the problem does not mean that it can solve the problem. The executives of Case and AOL also know the problem that AOL is facing, but if they want to solve it, it will not be solved in a short time, let alone Time Warner Staring at them, trying to drive them away.

   "This is just the expenses during the merger and acquisition. AOL has changed new partners, advertisers, users, and settlement methods, and it's just fluctuated!

   Moreover, now AOL Time Warner's Internet business is in charge of you, Jerry! "

  Case countered the army calmly, beat him up, and shifted the responsibility to Jerry Levine, threatening that it was Jerry Levine who was an outsider guiding experts, and blindly directed AOL's performance to decline.

  Jerry Levine almost couldn't hold his breath. It's only been a few months since the merger of AOL Time Warner, and he hasn't even recognized the executives. AOL has always acted on its own. How can he be blamed?

   Taking a deep breath, Jerry Levine didn't spit out a mouthful of old blood. He glanced at the two groups of executives in the conference room with clear divisions, and he knew that he couldn't continue like this.

   "Let the financial department correct the performance report for the first quarter, and Time Warner's media department correct the declining performance of AOL's online department!"

Hearing that Time Warner's money was going to fill AOL's hole, the former Time Warner executives were filled with righteous indignation. They were all still waiting to see the fun of AOL. Dare to fight for power with them.

  Jerry Levin stretched out his hand, blocked the objections of the former Time Warner executives, and then turned to Case, "The merger expectations of AOL and Time Warner may be somewhat beyond our expectations.

  I propose that AOL and Time Warner be transitioned to the original management mode first, and you, Case, will continue to be in charge of AOL's performance. In the next quarter, AOL's performance can no longer decline! "

  Jerry Levine can't help it. It's less than the first year of the merger. If the news really breaks out, he will also be nailed to the pillar of shame.

  Let Case take over AOL first, that is, AOL's business, and still be in charge of Case and AOL's original executives. As for the complete merger, let's go through the immediate hurdle first.

Hearing this, the ex-AOL executives all showed joy. Only Case hesitated to speak. He really knew that AOL had a problem, and he would be responsible for taking over, but facing Jerry Levine and the crowd Under the watchful eyes of the director, Case could only agree with his scalp.

When the accountants in the financial department of AOL Time Warner racked their brains and used all kinds of words to modify AOL's performance decline and put Time Warner's performance in AOL's performance report, at the General Electric headquarters, they also The M&A meeting between ICQ and Bronfman Group ushered in.

   Several major shareholders of ICQ have sent responsible persons or representatives to attend this meeting.

   "Song!"

  Brian Roberts, who came here on behalf of the Comcast Group, looked very calm when he saw Song Yang, far less angry than Song Yang imagined.

In the lounge next to the conference room, Brian Roberts held a cup of espresso and said to Song Yang, "I heard some bad rumors. I heard that little Edgar Bronfman seems to be a bit fond of Song Ni. dissatisfied!"

  Even if he put it down, Song Yang didn’t support Comcast’s fight for ICQ’s board of directors. When the opportunity came, Brian Roberts couldn’t help but add to Song Yang’s frustration.

   "All for ICQ!"

  Song Yang Dayi said this awe-inspiringly.

  (end of this chapter)