The tests for AOL Communicator come as the company seeks to right itself following a period of declining subscriber growth, dwindling ad sales and an internal audit that led the company, a division of AOL Time Warner, to recently wipe $190m in revenue from its books over questionable accounting. On Thursday, AOL's board met to review a plan, presented by a new management team, that aims to fix problems at the troubled unit. Details of the plan are expected to be announced on 3 December. Key issues facing the company include the future of its dial-up Internet access business, which faces increasingly credible competition from rivals such as Microsoft's MSN and is coming to grips with the arrival of high-speed Net access for the home. AOL is expected to feature more proprietary content to appeal to consumers. AOL Communicator harkens back to a similar product developed by AOL subsidiary Netscape Communications -- but with some key differences. Netscape Communicator bundled its Web browser with an email client, a Web authoring tool and newsgroups, among other applications. The latest version of the Netscape browser still comes packaged with some of these applications, such as an email client. Unlike Netscape Communicator, however, AOL's new integrated email product is not browser-based. It also focuses more on having the email client collaborate with other software applications. Microsoft has also taken steps to incorporate address book applications and instant messaging into its Outlook products. For example, the software maker has bundled Outlook functions into its MSN 8 Internet service. Many functions currently available on AOL Communicator are linked together. Instant messaging users are alerted when buddies send them emails, and users can click address book entries to immediately send emails or instant messages to contacts. "I think it's an attempt to make sure they're competitive in terms of features with Outlook," said Rob Batchelder, president of IM Intelligence, a consulting firm for the instant messaging industry. The new email product could be positioned as a business tool as AOL steps up its efforts to court corporations. In June, the company unveiled a new Strategic Business Solutions division that will sell AOL software to companies. The marquee product is a version of AIM that allows companies to manage Internet instant messaging correspondences. Microsoft and Yahoo! have both unveiled similar enterprise IM efforts and plan to sell these services to companies next year. The launch of all these products underscores a push to sell traditionally free software to a market that would be more likely to pay. Although AOL remained mum about how it plans to push AOL Communicator, the product could face a cold reception if the economy continues to limp along. "Unless somebody was giving it away, you're not going to get a lot of takers right now because budgets are tight," said Laura DiDio, an analyst at Yankee Group.
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