据知情的有关人士透露，Google和Concast正在与时代华纳进行谈判，意图部分收购美国在线。与此同时，微软公司也在进行类似的谈判，意图收购美国在线少部分股票，而Google和Concast的动作，被视作是对微软的阻击。

曾经，时代华纳长时间受到华尔街施加的压力，要求卖掉美国在线，而目前的态势意味着时代华纳占据了优越的位置，因为有多名收购者的竞争，而这将提升美国在线的价值。

Google和Comcast是在上个月时代华纳与微软进行谈判的报道出现之后开始接触时代华纳的。实际上，Google的CEO Eric在上个月16号，也就是相关报道出次出现的第二天就安排了会议，讨论部分收购美国在线的事情。

但是，Google、Concast、时代华纳和微软拒绝对谈判的任何情况做评论。

转自：The New York Times, October 13, 2005

By SAUL HANSELL

Published: October 13, 2005

Google and Comcast are in talks with Time Warner to buy a portion of America Online, according to several people with knowledge of the negotiations. The joint bid was widely seen as a way to head off Microsoft, which has also been negotiating to buy a minority stake in AOL.

The development means that Time Warner, which has long been under pressure by Wall Street to sell off its AOL unit, now finds itself in the enviable position of having multiple suitors, which may drive up AOL's value.

Both Comcast and Google approached Time Warner last month after word of Time Warner's discussions with Microsoft were reported in the press.

Indeed, Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, who was in New York on Sept. 16, the day after the first report appeared in The New York Post, hastily arranged a meeting that day with Jonathan F. Miller, the chief executive of AOL, and top officials of Time Warner, a person close to the discussion said.

The terms of any potential deal are very much in flux, several participants said. Spokesmen for Google, Comcast, Time Warner and Microsoft declined to comment on any negotiations among them.

Time Warner believes that any deal must value AOL at more than $20 billion. But the kind of minority stake Google and Comcast may be negotiating would have a lower value because it would involve only AOL's Web portal and content, and not its highly profitable but declining Internet dial-up business.

Time Warner's decision to sell a minority stake in AOL is driven by its need to increase its sagging stock price, especially as it is being pressured to restructure itself by Carl C. Icahn, the activist investor, said Michael B. Nathanson, who follows Time Warner for Sanford C. Bernstein.

Microsoft and Yahoo, AOL's two big rivals, also announced yesterday that they would link their instant-messaging services, a move that appeared to intensify Time Warner's need to show that it is taking action, Mr. Nathanson said. "Carl Icahn's accusing them of inaction and saying that when they do take action they make mistakes," he said. "This could be an elegant solution to try and get the stock price to get to a higher valuation."

Time Warner hopes a reconstituted AOL will sell shares to the public, but it plans to keep a majority stake in the company, people involved in the negotiations said. That way Time Warner would be able to have a public validation of AOL's value while still controlling one of the largest Internet companies, in an era when audiences and advertisers are shifting from traditional media forms to the Internet.

Over the last two weeks, Google has become more involved in trying to work out a deal to buy a stake in AOL, people involved in the deal-making said. Late last week, Google contacted Comcast about a joint bid and they approached Time Warner with the concept earlier this week, a person involved in the negotiations said.

Google wants to preserve its position as the search service on AOL's various offerings, which reach more than 73 million users in the United States each month, according to Nielsen NetRatings. And Comcast hopes to lure customers for its high-speed data service by offering AOL's content and by marketing to AOL's dial-up subscribers.

Microsoft, for its part, is mainly interested in extending the reach of its new Web search business, which it sees as the best way to counter the growing power of Google.

Currently, Microsoft's MSN search has 11 percent of the search market and AOL, which currently uses Google to power its Web search, has 8 percent, according to Nielsen NetRatings. For Google, the loss of the AOL contract would not be a big financial blow, but it could have other effects, said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with Royal Bank of Canada.

"AOL contributes clicks, liquidity and high-quality traffic to the Google network," he said, and that makes advertising with Google more attractive.

Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Company, however, said an ownership deal in AOL had little potential benefit for Google: "By itself, AOL doesn't have any major asset of use to Google, except perhaps their instant message system. I wouldn't want them to overbid for it."

For Comcast, the prospect of winning AOL's dial-up customers to its high-speed Internet service is particularly attractive. Comcast, which has 21.5 million customers, has been facing increasing competition for new high-speed users from phone companies, which offer lower prices. SBC and more recently Verizon have formed partnerships with Yahoo, which offers content and services that users find attractive - a shift that may force Comcast to seek a source of Internet content and services like AOL.

For years, Time Warner executives have proposed just such an alliance, but Comcast has rebuffed them many times, arguing it could build its own Web portal.

This time, Comcast may be persuaded because there is the potential for substantial profit if the AOL unit were to go public.

Negotiations between AOL and Microsoft have been hot and cold for several months, people involved say, because Microsoft is unsure which of its business units to contribute to a potential partnership.

Some at Microsoft hoped it would simply invest in AOL, but keep its MSN unit intact. AOL argued that it should take over all of MSN, which would have the greatest potential for cost-saving and create the biggest entity, which could be sold in a public offering as the largest online portal.

Other companies have also inquired about taking a stake in AOL. Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of the News Corporation, expressed interest in AOL, but cut discussions short when it was clear Time Warner was not willing to sell a controlling interest, a person involved in the talks said. A spokesman for the News Corporation declined to comment.

Time Warner appears to be in no hurry to complete a deal. It hopes to pick from one of several deals, and the longer the public discussion about rival bidders, the greater the improvement to AOL's value, people familiar with the company's strategy say.

So far, the jockeying among the giant Internet companies has created a series of unusual alliances. The announcement yesterday by Microsoft and Yahoo that they would link their instant message systems is a case in point. That alliance would allow users of Yahoo's service to send messages to those using Microsoft's software and vice versa.

Executives of the two companies said the link, which will not be effective until next year, results from more than a year of negotiations. But analysts suggested that its release now was an attempt to pressure AOL into choosing a deal with Microsoft over Google.

While such a deal may well hurt Yahoo as its competitors consolidate, Yahoo may be willing to lend Microsoft modest assistance at the expense of Google, Mr. Rohan said.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," he said. "I don't think Yahoo fears Microsoft. There is no animosity between them at a corporate level. But both Microsoft and Yahoo are increasingly fearful of Google's power."