tries. The Company is in the early stages of offering services in China (Time Warner, Inc., 2005a).
AOL acquired the wireless technologies firm Wildseed (based in the United States) to expand AOL's own wireless division. Wildseed provides mobile Linux-based operating system services. AOL also acquired Xdrive (another American company. Xdrive is an online storage and backup services provider. AOL expanded into digital music services with the acquisition of MusicNow, which has been renames AOL Music Now (Time Warner, Inc., 2005a).
AOL is the target of other major players in the Internet business sector. Comcast (an American cable television and ISP company), Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have shown interest in acquiring all or parts of AOL (Hoover's, Inc., 2005c).
AOL owns several online businesses that are not associated with the proprietary AOL network. These companies include the following (Time Warner, Inc., 2005a):
Mapquest provides online maps for consumers and businesses
Moviefone is a motion picture film guide and ticketing service
AOL operates the Wal-Mart Connect service for Wal-Mart (the service is available to Wal-Mart customers for $10 a month, for which they receive email, instant messaging, and online content)
InStore (www.in-store.com) is a comparison shopping service
Through the Netscape brand (which is owned by AOL), the consumers may obtain discount dial-up Internet access, which allows AOL to compete against lower-priced rivals (AOL has announced plans to sell Netscape to Red Hat an open source and Linux operating system provider)
AOL is preparing to launch a discount travel search engine (the service will compete against Travelocity, Hotwire, and other discount travel services)
Advertising.com is an online advertising company that functions cooperatively but independently from the AOL proprietary network
Mailblocks provides enhanced email services for personal accounts
America...