AOL and Google

One has to wonder if it is payback time for Microsoft. The company has been a ruthless competitor over the years and has routinely wiped out companies with successful business models. There are countless software vendors from Quarterdeck to Borland that were steamrolled by the Redmond behemoth over the years.

Now it seems like the tables have turned. As you might recall MSN was supposed to fight it out against AOL. MSN never rose to meet the expectations Microsoft had for the online service. But what they did do is make an enemy in AOL.

Now that Time Warner is selling off part of AOL it seems that perhaps the resentment towards Microsoft may have been a factor in the company’s decision to sell a 5% stake in AOL to not Microsoft but Google.

Now if you read articles such as this one, you’ll see there are lots of other reasons why Google was chosen over Microsoft as well but I wonder if the bad blood between Microsoft and AOL was an important factor.