Steve Case to Time Warner: Free AOL

The former CEO of AOL, Steve Case, broke his silence on the fate of the company yesterday, arguing in favor of a break-up of Time Warner and a stand-alone AOL (the latter idea being one that I've flogged in numerous posts here and here).  Although Case & Co. must take responsibility for pursuing a merger that, in hindsight, probably had little chance of success, much of the damage to AOL has occurred in the years since the humiliated AOL old guard has been pushed out of Time Warner.

Specifically, Time Warner's management's refusal to take the lead in forcing the company's competing divisions to cooperate instead of competing with one another (or, at the very least, to allow them to compete) has obliterated the whole reason for the merger and made AOL next to irrelevant in high-speed services, Internet telephony, music, and other industry segments that it could have dominated.  If AOL bleeds to death, it will be Time Warner's current management, not AOL's old one, that should be held accountable. 

Case also pisses on the idea of a joint venture or other half-measure as a fix, another sentiment I very much agree with.  Last week's floated idea of combining sales-forces with MSN was one of the worst yet.