On the Way to the Web,The Secret History of the Internet and its Founders by Michael A Banks

Author:Michael A Banks
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-10-01T16:55:25+00:00

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Chapter 13 AOL Evolves: Expansion, Integration, and Success The main difference in the two situations was that Apple wasn’t approaching its demise as Commodore was. Apple was healthy and producing more potential customers every day.

Figure 13-1. AppleLink for the Apple II, before it became AOL for Apple What’s more, a second market would soon open: the Macintosh version was nearly ready for release when Apple pulled out. And all that needed to be done for it to go public was to remove the official Apple logos and tweak a few things, as had been done with the Apple II version. Then America Online for Macintosh would go online, right alongside America Online for the Apple II.

(They were the same service on AOL’s end, but the software came in a version for Apple II and a version for Macintosh that looked quite similar.) It was nice to be in charge, but Quantum wasn’t looking to drop clients in exchange for independence. In fact, it still operated PC-Link for Tandy, and was about to get into a new private label deal, with IBM.

Promenade

With America Online for Apple and Macintosh online and growing, AOL was approached by IBM to start what it thought would be the last of its private-brand deals. IBM was planning to introduce a new computer, the PS/1, in 1990.

The PS/1 had a built-in modem, at a time when most personal computers came without modems. To increase customer awareness of this value-added item, IBM wanted to create an online service dedicated to the PS/1. The service would also provide an owner-support channel.

To this end, the computer giant contracted with Quantum to build an online service called Promenade. Potential PS/1 buyers would hopefully view the free modem and the private service as bonus features. From IBM’s

Chapter 13 AOL Evolves: Expansion, Integration, and Success 129

perspective, Promenade would be a marketing tool, one for which the users would pay if all went as planned.

Promenade went online in June 1990. Promenade was based on GeoWorks, like AOL for MS-DOS. The software was packaged with every IBM PS/1. On the same principle as the other private label services, Promenade looked and operated like other computer applications, drop-down menus and all. The product offerings were in line with other online services—email, software downloads, bulletin boards, games, chat, travel, news and other information.1

IBM paid Quantum the better part of two million dollars to set up the service, but Promenade did not last long, for two reasons. First, the conser-vatism of IBM permeated it, which meant monitored chat rooms and other restrictions.

Second, IBM promoted Promenade almost exclusively to PS/1 owners, which made for a limited audience—a lot more limited than anyone had expected. Personal computing professionals were suspicious of the machine from the beginning. Its design, which placed the motherboard and other circuits inside the monitor, handicapped the PS/1 from the start: it was impossible to use any monitor but IBM’s. Other faults included limited memory expansion and difficulties with upgrading. IBM released several new versions of the PS/1 over the next three years, but didn’t get rid of all the bad features.

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