The due-diligence team gave this acquisition a resounding thumbs-down - but AOL management with close ties to Wildseed pushed ahead, and overspent on an over-hyped technology that noone wanted.

Worse though was the human cost - the Wildseed CEO plundered a viable business, fired the employees that had made it successful, pissed off carrier partners - left a katrina-esque disaster in his wake.

He must have used all his smarts at Microsoft because there were non evident in his handling of this. The only smart thing he did was selling this hairball to AOL.

The third-party is Haier, the one customer AOL had for Wildseed’s portable media player. You can see the device here - http://www.amazon.com/ibiza-Rhapsody-H1A030BL-Wi-Fi-Player/dp/B000XRO8O4

Apparently the new company name is Varia Mobile - http://variamobile.com/, though don’t expect them to be around for long…

oh, there’s an ipod killer for you - NOT

it’s certainly not much to show for the millions of dollars and human carnage

investors beware when the “viking” shows up with his next “Wild-Hare”

My symparthies to you all
I am a victim of similar disaster - the world’s 1st ever Video on Demand service - back in the mid 1990’s.funded privately by VC’s with a dream (the worse) we ran against the impossible odds of BT - then have a monsterously moonopoly on Broadcnd and nearly every copper telco ‘wire’ in the UK
Nevertheless as part of the original ‘gang of 13’ we launched the service in the city of Hull - later to be Kingston communications PLC which they could not touch.
It worked a dream and VC money came flooding in with alot of promises that we’d conquer the world. Of course we couldn’t - we had the monopolies against us.
Needless to say BT have their own system now. When will people ever learn that throwing this money around like this ends up in more hardship than anything
I’m into social networking services with a ‘twist’ at the moment and very happy thank you - keeping it ‘real’ and manageable and looking after (hopefully) our families not ‘the others’ you write about. Keep up the great work on the site. C

Is this REALLY about AOL being a shitty company, or does someone have a vendetta for these WildSeed guys?

You say the due-diligence team gave this acquisition a resounding thumbs-down? Would that be the same “due-diligence” team that gave a thumbs “up” on the $4.2 BILLION failed acquisition of Netscape?

They’ve been FU#Ked more times (and FU#Ked more acquisitions up) than a gay man locked up in a Turkish prison.

AOL is a dinosaur. It will be extinct in 5 years. Everyone will wonder how it could’ve F’d up something so good.

Screw AOL. ii||i

PLEASE NOTE:

In December 2006, in order to cut operating costs, AOL decided to cease using American based call centers to provide customer service. They drastically downsized Stateside corporate operations as well. Two weeks before Christmas, thousands of workers were put on notice that their positions were being eliminated altogether, or being replaced with outsourced employees. On January 28, 2007, the last domestic call center (based in Oklahoma City) closed its doors. All customer service calls are now handled by representatives in India, the Philippines, Argentina and, until October of 2007, Canada.

Wildseed Refugee, you sound extremely bitter.

You sure know a lot about this situation ("the Wildseed CEO plundered a viable business, fired the employees that had made it successful, pissed off carrier partners - left a katrina-esque disaster in his wake.")

Were you one of those “fired the employees that had made it successful?” Either you are waaaaaay to full of yourself, or still mighty pissed off about getting your ass canned—or both.

People get fired for a variety of reasons; perhaps people in the company just did not like you, or you fucked something up for them?

Truth hurts.

overspent? I hardly think an estimated $30 million price tag for a company that had a proven tack record of producing successful linux software is hardly a bad business decision (First ever Linux-based cell phone to be sold in the U.S., I believe).

It’s how you manage it that matters, and from what Iv’e heard, AOL left them to die, just like all thier other buisnesses they bought.

AOL lost some $300 million last quarter. It is last in the Time Warner family units, in terms of revenue. They have no viable strategy ("hey, let’s copy Google and do paid advertising, because it works so well for microsoft!") They go through leaders like I go through underwear.

It’s just a constant powers struggle at the top for dominance by rich boys fighting over rich toys and power, and each leader knows they have about 3 years before they screw the company up and sail away with a golden parachute. No loyalty, No long-term strategy, No smarts to utilize what assets you have in your own company...Bye bye, AOL. You’ll be remembered fondly for bringing the internet to the masses...and then screwing it all up.