AOL TV was the name of both a thin client which uses a television for display (rather than a monitor), and the online service that supports it, both of which were launched in June 2000 to compete with WebTV.
 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary of America Online |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet Protocol television |
| Founded | June 2000 |
| Defunct | 2002 |
| Fate | Discontinued |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | nationwide in USA |
Key people | Anne Bentley (spokeswomen) David Nagel (board member) Tom Nagel (board member) James Barksdale (board member) Larry Ellison (board member) Mitchell Kertzman (early CEO and president) Philip Vachon (later CEO) |
| Products | IPTV |
| Parent | AOL |
| Website | aoltv.com (Not active) |
The product and service were developed by America Online. While most thin clients developed in the mid-1990s were positioned as diskless workstations for corporate intranets, AOL TV was positioned as a consumer device for web access. Since the device was a dedicated web browser appliance, the cost of licensing a proprietary operating system could be avoided. The cost of licensing a proprietary operating system is substantial for inexpensive devices.
The set top box for AOL TV was developed by NCI/Liberate using a thin client and manufactured by Philips.[1][2][3]
AOL TV discontinued sales in November 2002, although the service remained available to existing subscribers.[4] The service is no longer supported by AOL and the documentation has been removed from their servers.