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Quantum Their Contribution
to Multimedia History |
THINK BACK to 1985, way back. Over a decade ago, a small incorporated company by the name of Quantum Computer Services was registered in Delaware on exactly the 24th day of May 1985. Now, today, most people wouldn't be able to tell you a thing about Quantum or what happened to them, but the truth is, there are over 18 million members that use the services of this company every day. Quantum's first service was called "Q-Link"; it was launched on Commodore Business Machines back in November of '85. Their next innovation was "PC-Link" which was launched jointly with the Tandy Corporation. Not any of this is jogging your memory? In 1989, Quantum's next innovation is one we all know very well, the "America Online" service was launched for Macintosh and Apple II. Although it was nothing like it is today, it was a start for Quantum and at the time, they had no idea how much they were really getting into. In February of 1991, A DOS version of AOL was launched and only eight months later; Quantum Computer Services changed its name officially to America Online, Inc. In Early 1992 AOL was doing enough business to start selling stocks in the company so the went on the NASDAQ market at the original price of $11.50 under the symbol AMER. A year later, still doing well, the windows version of AOL was released and shortly thereafter, AOL exceeded 500,000 members. Not much happened with AOL for about the next year or so. Sales steadily increased, stocks steadily rose and by August 16, 1994 1 Million people were members of AOL. Later on in '94 AOL acquired RedGate Communications, a multimedia publishing company, to help them out. They also launched the GreenHouse to develop original content online, and acquired VaviSoft, a developer of Internet publishing tools. Towards the end of the '94 an early '95 they acquired Booklink Technologies and ANS. BookLink was a developer of Internet applications and ANS was a commercial Internet access provider. There was an awful lot of acquiring going on but by this time the AOL project was snowballing at such a rapid pace and the business was paving not just a road, but a highway for the multimedia world. Their members had doubled to 2 million in less than a year and AOL was just about to announce their intentions to launch AOL in Europe in a joint venture with Bartelsmann. Over the next three months AOL acquired WAIS, an Internet publisher, Medior, a developer of interactive media, Global Network Navigator (GNN) and Web Crawler, an internet search tool. Mid way through the year, they were already at an amazing 3 million members. It was starting to appear as though whenever AOL spent some money to better the company, more and more people flocked to them, so that's exactly what they did. '95 was only half over and there was still much more to do to advance the company so AOL did what they were doing best, acquiring! The acquired Ubique Ltd., creator of Virtual Places, then they launched the GNN, AOL's direct Internet service.
1996 started off well with the launch of AOL in the UK and Canada, marketing alliances with Apple and AT&T were announced and AOL passes the 5 million member mark. In March, AOL is launched in France and they join with Mitsui and Nikkei to launch service in Japan. This kind of speed and acknowledgement of the fast paced world kept AOL flying, sometimes by the seat of their pants. As we know, AOL has over 18 million members as of today and if you have ever tried their service, you will see that although they were way ahead of their time before, the industry has caught up with them and in many cases passed them in quality and technology. The year is 1999 and the Internet is a popular place for people to be when they are on their computers. AOL might not be the best service to use now but I truly believe that the companies I do use now, probably wouldn't be where they are today if it weren't for Quantum Computer Services who paved the road and set the pace for this technological race we call the internet.
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