This is only one of the landmark moments in business history that can be recalled in a few weeks. This week presents three epochs in three totally distinct decades, three sectors, and three lessons concerning technology, ambition, and the apocalyptic cost of being utterly wrong. And the first text message in the world, the invention that changed the behavior of man forever, and the most costly merger bomb of American financial history. Buckle up, Ticker Historians. Stay bullish.
First DM
On July 5th, 1996, the first use of ICQ, which was developed by Mirabilis, was made through direct messaging. This was not then referred to as a DM, and its effect was not apparent. Direct messaging has become the most significant communication mode for billions of people today and an important business aspect of large social platforms across the world.
ICQ Legacy
In 1998, AOL purchased ICQ at approximately $407 million, which is one of the major technology acquisitions in Internet history. ICQ had more than one hundred million registered members at its height. The company sold this future of communication to AOL, which did very little with it.
iPhone Debuts
On January 9 th, 2007, Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone, a 4-inch iPod, an extraordinary cell phone, and a pioneer in internet products. The audience would laugh at the fact that they set up, but afterwards came to the realization of the importance of what Apple had developed.
Jobs Delivers
The first iPhone was introduced on June 29th, 2007, with a price of 499. Large firms such as Nokia and BlackBerry had ruled it as expensive and impractical. After three years, they were all working on developing their own touchscreen phones. They were not saved by the keyboard.
BlackBerry Falls
At the time of the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, BlackBerry occupied approximately twenty percent of the worldwide smartphone market, and the co-CEO of the company asserted that Apple would fail without a physical keyboard. By 2013, the market share of BlackBerry had fallen to below three percent, and by 2016, the company had completely left the hardware production. Lesson learnt the hard way, in a costly manner.
AOL Merges
AOL and Time Warner declared the biggest organizational merger in the American business on January 10, 2000, and its valuation amounted to approximately 350 billion. AOL, which had been overvalued in the dot-com age, acquired one of the most valuable media corporations. It was pronounced by Wall Street to be the deal of the century, but not the way it was supposed to.
Merger Collapses
The internet startup culture represented by AOL could not go along with the old-media culture of Time Warner. The dot-com boom broke months after the deal as the inflated AOL stock values on which the company had based the acquisition collapsed. All the events unfolded sooner than anybody had expected.
Billion Written Off
AOL Time Warner had the biggest annual corporate loss in United States history in 2002, a write-down of approximately $99 billion in goodwill. The firm that sought to define the future of the media and technology actually resulted in one of the worst destructions of shareholder value in history.
The Thread
ICQ established a communication format that determines everyday life in the world. The iPhone has brought a revolution to one industry. AOL Time Warner had tried to purchase the future in overestimated stock and found out that this currency is not accepted in the future. Three moments. Three lessons about business to learn.
