VITAMEDIAS
AOL-Microsoft? Not Likely, Just Logical
If Bill Gates bought the online albatross, he'd acquire the subscribers to make MSN a winner. And Time Warner? Its stock would soar
O.K., so it's a fantasy - given Microsoft's past antitrust problems - with about as much chance of happening as, say, Steve Jobs getting hired as Bill Gates's replacement. Neither Microsoft nor AOL Time Warner would even dignify such speculation beyond laughing it off. But just for a moment, set aside all the obvious reasons why such a deal could never happen -- and examine why it would make sense. "I think it's a brilliant idea," says Porter Bibb, former publisher of Rolling Stone magazine and founder of Technology Partners Holdings, a private technology-investment firm in New York.