AMO looks into America Online 6.0 10/26/00 12:00:00am Albuquerque, Nm Dustin D. Brand; Owner AMO
The new AOL 6 is packed full of broadband features, we'll tell you why...
America Online version 6 debuted today at the Fall Internet World 2000 (Oct 25, 2000), the exact same day as Microsoft releases it's new MSN Explorer, which is also packed full of broadband features.
The Broadband features AOL has included with 6 are part of an experiment with AOL 5.0 with the AOL Plus add-in. Adding these features to AOL 6 as part of the release is paramount to AOL's pending merger with and acquistion of Time-Warner.
Time Warner of course has the largest Cable system in the country (partly owned by AT&T), the leading platform for broadband internet access to the home. AOL and Time Warner should finish their merger and get the green light from the FTC and FCC sometime in the
next few months, I personally predict Jan. 27, 2001.
Aside from the obvious newer is better, AOL 6 is not all it's cracked up to be, but they're betting on it. Although Cable Broadband internet access is growing rapidly, this number is no where near AOL's American subscribed user base of 20 Million customers.
Furthermore, AOL 6 does not run on Windows 2000 (although it does run on Windows ME {see AMO reviews Windows ME}). Our inside investigation into AOL version 6 not running on Windows 2000 is due to them choosing to
finally ditch most of their "proprietary" internet systems, and opt for the standard Windows based internet connection methods. This "last minute" effort has yeilded longer development time for a Windows 2000 based client.
AOL is also finally integrating everything they possibly can that they own into 6.0's release. This will result in several more class action lawsuits against AOL for loading everything they possible can onto a users hard drive, whether they intend to install it or not.
AOL's technical support is also in store for a slam of new issues. Very few of the AOL techs are actively part of AOL's beta team, and have only had their hands on AOL 6 for less than 30 days. This means bad customer service for most of you on top of the unqualified staff many of
you deal with as of now.
When AOL's merger with Time Warner is concluded (yes this will happen soon), they will start construction on there two tiered sky scraper headquarters where they plan to build the support for this new version of AOL 6. Integrating the 2 companies is hard enough even though they are a
great match, placing all this into AOL 6 at such an early stage is yet another story. AOL's current system in it's current state can't handle more that a few million simultaneous users at a time. In AOL's biggest presence cities this number is much much less.
If you have broadband internet access now, get AOL 6 and take advantage. If you don't, get AOL 6 anyways for the new interface, and the notion that they fixed what you don't like about the version you're using. SMILE.
