At 09:13 AM 9/8/97 -0500, you wrote:

Worldcom bought Compuserve? I heard this morning on the radio that AOL had bought them for a huge summ, and plan on operating them as a seperate entity.

The deal works like this: 1) WorldCom buys CompuServe for $1.2 billion in stock 2) WorldCom splits off the online service business from the network infrastructure business at CompuServe 3) AOL sells ANS (its network infrastructure division) to WoldCom in exchange for $175 million in cash plus the online service portion of the CompuServe business 4) AOL signs a five-year contract with WorldCom for network services (i.e. those which used to be provided by ANS and the network infrastructure part of CompuServe). Net Effects: H&R Block is rid of CompuServe. AOL owns CompuServe's subscribers and is out of the business of deploying modems and routers. WorldCom owns the networks built by AOL and CompuServe and sells network services to AOL. The big get bigger. Anybody else wondering how Prodigy is faring with their recent sale/outsource of their network infrastructure?