Microsoft to Buy AOL

The new york post is reporting that Time-Warner is looking to sell off half it’s AOL unit to Microsoft.

 

In a deal that would unite two of America’s corporate giants as partners in the Internet business, Time Warner is in advanced discussions to sell a stake in America Online to Microsoft, The Post has learned.

According to two sources familiar with the matter, Time Warner is in talks with Microsoft about selling the stake in AOL and then combining it with Microsoft’s Web unit MSN.

Under the plan being considered, Microsoft would pay some money to Time Warner for the AOL stake, leaving the two companies approximately equal partners in the venture.

 

AOL has some great products not to mention it’s AOL IM service. I see this as being highly important to Google because it’s harder to gain new IM customers as they tend to be more loyal. Google trails AOL, Yahoo! and MSN in IM customers. On the other hand, both Microsoft and Google are having a really hard time finding as many quality software engineers as they would like to get. It will be interesting to see who scoops up this company if anyone does at all. It’s worth mentioning that Google just recently raised over 4 billion off selling additional stock.