Posted: 08th Jan, 2004 By: MarkJ
Rumours that AOL's European ISP division could be taken over have been refuted by Time Warner's chief executive officer, Richard Parsons. Not that Wanadoo's chairman and CEO, Olivier Sichel, was listening:
Parsons called AOL Europe's turnaround of its once-ailing operations "a pretty interesting success story" and said that rumours of him holding talks to sell the European business were off the mark.
However, Wanadoo chairman and CEO Olivier Sichel revealed in a radio interview earlier this week that he is interested in all opportunities to expand his company's European presence, including a purchase of AOL Europe. Sichel said he expected further consolidation in the European ISP market.
"We have held no talks with Time Warner about AOL Europe but as we have said all along, we aim to strengthen our business in Europe and that means we will study all options," a France Telecom spokeswoman said yesterday.Mind you, this could all be part of the usual sales talk, designed to get AOL the best deal, but that's just pure speculation.
Whatever the future, the rumours of interest from Wanadoo and Deutsche Telekom etc. will no doubt continue. More @
Computer Weekly.