Looking at ICQ after the merger with Bronfman Group, it is indeed the prototype of an empire. It has more than 100 million Internet users around the world. It owns IBC, two major American television groups, plus Comcast Television Network, which can cover America.

There are 86 million TV users and over 12 million overseas users.

In addition, it also has complete film and TV series production capabilities and distribution channels. There is no need to purchase copyrights from outside parties. ICQ's internal Universal Pictures and Universal Music can provide them. ICQ also owns America Telecom, the world's largest broadband telecommunications company.

Companies and user line ICQ can all be supplied by themselves!

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

When the news of mergers and acquisitions spread, major Wall Street institutions and analysts were all imagining the scenario after the empire was built. In the future, a user would install broadband, make friends online, and then browse TV stations, search for TV series, variety shows, and watch movies in the cinema.

, mobile Internet access, phone calls, entertainment and communication needs in life, ICQ can meet all.

There is a saying in Bangzi that Bangzi people are inseparable from life and death and paying taxes. Now, as long as Americans 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 be explosive if he thinks about it with his toes.

This caused the stock prices of ICQ and ICQ's major shareholder General Electric to take off immediately. GE's stock price hit the US$500 billion mark, while ICQ hit the threshold of the US$400 billion market capitalization club.

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When everyone thinks something is valuable, even if it is scrap metal, it can drive people into a frenzy. ICQ has this trend now. Wall Street analysts have blown it to the sky, just short of it.

Shouting "Trillion dollar market value is no longer a dream", the leeks regard it as a delicacy and are counting on it to make a lot of money!

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

ICQ's carnival is still going on, and AOL Time Warner, after a brief period of glory, is now in a state of turmoil.

If the internal disputes at ICQ can still remain superficial under Irene's suppression, then the battle between AOL and Time Warner has become public. The executives of AOL and Time Warner are now intolerant of each other.

Get used to the other person’s style and work habits.

AOL dislikes the people at Time Warner for being old-fashioned. A matter only takes thirty minutes to handle at AOL. But at Time Warner, it has to go through countless people's signatures, reviews, and a series of processes, which makes AOL people tire of waiting.

.

Time Warner believes that AOL has no rules at all. I 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 for commuting to and from get off work, and their financial expenditures are chaotic. They have little interest in investing in technology and would rather spend a large amount of marketing expenses on advertising. , are unwilling to handle calls from users complaining, 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 has the final say at AOL Time Warner. This is the key. Although when the agreement was originally signed, Jerry Laiwen was in charge of AOL.

Time Warner's media and Internet businesses, Case is responsible for the technology and public relations departments.

But in fact, when the critical moment comes, who is willing to give up the rights in their hands? Even if Case is willing, the original AOL executives will not agree to be replaced by Time Warner people. This is human nature.

It doesn’t depend on anyone’s will!

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

Jerry Laiwen was a little worried and asked Case. AOL and Time Warner postponed the first quarter performance report. It was so sudden. AOL Time Warner's financial department calculated the first quarter performance.

It's down 15%.

Not only did it not meet the expectations before the merger, it even declined. In addition, the two sides were fighting for power and profit. This led to today's "three-court trial", which happened to take advantage of AOL's performance to attack Case.

Case's expression remained normal, showing no signs of panic. Although the moment he received the report, Case did not fall asleep for a full 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 business. The latter is equivalent to AOL's cash cow, which can support

Various mergers and acquisitions of AOL.

But the strange thing is that starting from this year, Internet advertising fees began to decrease. Not only AOL, but also ICQ, Yahoo, Lycos and other companies are facing the same problem, just 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 America Telecom, the other telecom groups, even WorldCom, are preparing to play with broadband and give up dial-up Internet access. It can be imagined

What's going on in this industry? Dial-up Internet users won't disappear immediately, but they obviously won't grow either.

Knowing the problem does not mean that it can be solved. Case and AOL's executives also know the problems AOL faces, but it will not be solved in a short time, not to mention Time Warner.

He stared at them eagerly and wanted to drive them away.

"This is just the expense during the merger and acquisition. AOL has changed new partners, advertisers, users, and settlement methods, so there are some fluctuations!

Moreover, you are now in charge of AOL Time Warner’s Internet business, Jerry!”

Case calmly turned the army around and put the blame on Jerry Laiwen, claiming that it was Jerry Laiwen who was an outsider and guided an expert and gave blind orders that caused AOL's performance to decline.

Jerry Laiwen almost choked up. It had only been a few months since the merger of AOL and Time Warner, and he hadn't even recognized the senior executives. AOL had always done its own thing. How could he be blamed?

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

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

When they heard that Time Warner's money was being used to fill AOL's hole, the former Time Warner executives were filled with indignation. They were all still waiting to see how much fun AOL had. Seeing how the former AOL executives were still

Do you dare to compete with them for power?

Jerry Laiwen reached out to stop the objections of the former Time Warner executives, and then faced Case, "The expected merger between AOL and Time Warner may be somewhat beyond our expectations.

I propose that AOL and Time Warner be allowed to transition according to their original management methods. Case, you will continue to be responsible for AOL's performance. Next quarter, AOL's performance cannot decline again!"

Jerry Laiwen had no choice. It was only the first year of the merger. If the bad news really came out, he would be nailed to the pillar of shame.

Let Case take over AOL first, that is, AOL's business will still be in charge of Case and the original AOL executives. As for the complete merger, we must first get through the current hurdle.

Hearing this, the former AOL executives all showed joy. Only Keith hesitated to speak. He really knew that there was a problem with AOL, and taking over would be taking the blame. But in the face of Jerry Laiwen and others,

Under the director's gaze, Case could only agree.

When the accountants in AOL Time Warner's financial department were racking their brains, using various vocabulary to modify AOL's performance decline, and stuffing Time Warner's performance and great changes into AOL's performance report, at the General Electric headquarters, they were also

Welcomed the merger and acquisition meeting between ICQ and Bronfman Group.

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

"Song!"

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

In the lounge next to the conference room, Brian Roberts held a cup of strong coffee and said to Song Yang, "I heard some bad rumors. I heard that little Edgar Bronfman seems to be interested in Song Yang."

Somewhat dissatisfied!”

Even if he let go of Song Yang's grudge against not supporting Comcast's bid for the ICQ board of directors, Brian Roberts still couldn't help but add some trouble to Song Yang when the opportunity arose.

“Everything is for ICQ!”
Chapter completed!