Casing the Customer Approach

The past decade was all about the PC. The next will be about the phone and the television. That's the view of Steve Case, AOL chairman & CEO, who told Wireless 2000 attendees that his recent deal with Time Warner prepares his company for that trend. The deal couples AOL's Internet-access service with Time Warner's delivery and content capabilities.

Case knows AOL's 50 million customers surf the Web an average of an hour a day, but he wonders what they do for the other 23 hours — and how he can capitalize on it. He knows that some hours are spent watching television, and he wants to bridge those worlds and transform television into something "more useful."

"Television needs to become more Internet-centric," Case said.

He's also looking at merging wireless and AOL, which already has relationships with BellSouth, Motorola, Nokia, Research in Motion and Sprint PCS.

"We do what we do really well, and partner with others who do their thing really well," Case said.

AOL Anywhere provides access to services anytime and anywhere, thanks to wireless.

"If you view this opportunity as just wireless or just PC, you're going to miss the more exciting opportunity of making it all work together for the benefit of the customer," he said.

Case argued that companies today must not think that they can do it all.

"That was Apple's mistake in the 1980s," Case said.

Microsoft is another example. After AOL grew to more than 100,000 subscribers, Case said Bill Gates offered to buy AOL or bury it. In explaining why he turned down the mogul of the PC revolution, Case said that "you've got to believe in what you are doing." Case believed that AOL had a better service and better word of mouth.

Case predicts some unlikely partnerships, both for his company and for others in this sector.

"You can't have a world where some companies are friends and some are enemies," Case said. "It may seem bizarre when we team with some companies, but that is the price we pay to succeed in the customer approach."