CompuServe
Encyclopedia
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States
. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL
with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates. Since the purchase of CompuServe's Information Services Division by AOL, the CompuServe Information Service has operated as an online service provider
and an Internet service provider
. The original CompuServe Information Service, later rebranded as CompuServe Classic, was shut down July 1, 2009. The newer version of the service, CompuServe 2000, continues to operate.
at the University of Arizona
. Early employees also recruited from the University of Arizona included Sandy Trevor (inventor of the CompuServe CB Simulator
chat system), Doug Chinnock, and Larry Shelley. Wilkins replaced Goltz as CEO within the first year of operation.
The company objectives were twofold: to provide in-house computer processing support to Golden United Life Insurance Co.; and to develop as an independent business in the computer time-sharing
industry, by renting time on its PDP-10
midrange computer
s during business hours
. It was spun off as a separate company in 1975, trading on the NASDAQ
under the symbol CMPU.
Concurrently, the company recruited executives who shifted the focus from offering time-sharing services, in which customers wrote their own applications, to one that was focused on packaged applications. The first of these new executives was Robert Tillson, who left Service Bureau Corporation (then a subsidiary of Control Data, but originally formed as a division of IBM
) to become CompuServe's Executive Vice President of Marketing. He then recruited Charles McCall (who followed Jeff Wilkins as CEO, and later became CEO of HBOC), Maury Cox (who became CEO after the departure of McCall), and Robert Massey (who was the last CEO of CompuServe). Barry Berkov was recruited from Xerox
to head product development and marketing.
In 1977, CompuServ's board changed the company's name to CompuServe Incorporated. In 1980, H&R Block
acquired CompuServe. The purchase provided cash to expand operations, and helped H&R Block diversify their tax-season based earnings.
minicomputers, and the PDP-8s were connected to a DEC PDP-15 minicomputer that acted as switches so a phone number was not tied to a particular destination host. Finally, CompuServe developed its own packet switching
network, implemented on DEC PDP-11
minicomputers acting as network nodes that were installed throughout the US (and later, in other countries) and interconnected. Over time, the CompuServe network evolved into a sophisticated multi-tiered network incorporating Asynchronous Transfer Mode
, Frame relay
, Internet Protocol
and X.25
technologies.
While best known for its consumer services division, the CompuServe Information Service, CompuServe was also a world leader in other commercial services. One of these was the Financial Services group, which collected and consolidated financial data from myriad data feeds, including CompuStat
, Disclosure, I/B/E/S as well as the price/quote feeds from the major exchanges. CompuServe developed extensive screening and reporting tools that were used by every investment bank on Wall Street
.
The consumer information service had been developed almost clandestinely, in 1978, and marketed as MicroNET through Radio Shack. Many within the company did not favor the project; it was called schlock time-sharing by the commercial time-sharing sales force. It was allowed to exist initially because consumers used the computers during evening hours, when the CompuServe computers were otherwise idle. As it became evident that it would be a hit, CompuServe dropped the MicroNET name in favor of their own, and by 1987, CompuServe Information Service would be 50% of CompuServe revenues. CompuServe's origin was approximately concurrent with that of The Source. Both services were operating in early 1979, being the first online services
.
By the mid-1980s CompuServe was one of the largest information and networking services companies in existence, and it was the largest consumer information service in the world. It operated commercial branches in more than 30 US cities, selling primarily network services to major corporations throughout the United States. Consumer accounts could be bought in most computer stores (a box with an instruction manual and a trial account login) and awareness of this service was extremely high. The service continued to improve in terms of user interface and offerings, and in 1989 CompuServe purchased and dismantled one of its main competitors, The Source.
The corporate culture was entrepreneurial, encouraging "skunkworks project
s". Alexander "Sandy" Trevor secluded himself for a weekend, writing the "CB Simulator", a chat system that soon became one of CIS's most popular features. Instead of hiring employees to manage the forums, they contracted with sysops, who received compensation based on the success of their own forum's boards, libraries, and chat areas.
, and wrote all the software that ran in the network. Often (and erroneously) called an 'X.25
network, the CompuServe network implemented a mixture of standardized and proprietary layers throughout the network. One of the proprietary layers was called 'Adaptive Routing. The Adaptive Routing system implemented two powerful features. One is that network operated entirely in a self-discovery mode. When a new switch was added to the network by connecting it to a neighbor via a leased telephone circuit, the new switch was discovered and absorbed into the network without explicit configuration. To change the network configuration, all that was needed was to add or remove connections, and the network would automatically reconfigure. The second feature implemented by Adaptive Routing was often talked about in network engineering circles, but was implemented only by CNS - establishing connection paths on the basis of real-time performance measurements. As one circuit became busy, traffic was diverted to alternative paths to prevent overloading and poor performance for users.
While the CNS network was not itself based on the X.25 protocol, the network presented a standard X.25 interface to the outside world, providing dialup connectivity to corporate hosts, and allowing CompuServe to form alliances with private networks Tymnet
and Telenet
, among others, giving CompuServe the largest selection of local dialup phone connections in the world. Other networks permitted CompuServe access to still more locations, including international locations, usually with substantial connect-time surcharges. It was common in the early 1980s to pay a $30-per-hour charge to connect to CompuServe, which at the time cost $5 to $6 per hour without the connect-time surcharges. This resulted in the company being nicknamed CompuSpend, Compu$erve or CI$.
CNS has been the primary supplier of dial-up communications for credit-card authorizations for over 20 years, a competence developed through its long relationship with Visa International. At the peak of this line of business, CompuServe carried millions of authorization transactions each month, representing several billion dollars of consumer purchase transactions. For many businesses an always-on connection is an extravagance, and a dialup option makes better sense. Today this service remains in operation, deeply embedded within Verizon (see below). There are no other competitors remaining in this market.
The company was notable for introducing a number of online services to personal computer
users. CompuServe began offering electronic mail
capabilities and technical support to commercial customers in 1978 under the name Infoplex, and was also a pioneer in the real-time chat
market with its CB Simulator
service introduced in 1980.
, a file transfer protocol
, allowing users to send files to each other. This was later expanded to the higher-performance B+ version, intended for downloads from CIS itself. Although the B+ protocol was not widely supported by other software, it was used by default for some time on CIS itself. The B+ protocol was later extended to include the Host-Micro Interface (HMI) a mechanism for communicating commands and transaction requests to a server application running on the mainframes. HMI could be used by "front end" client software to present a GUI
-based interface to CIS, without having to use the error-prone CLI to route commands.
CompuServe began to expand its reach outside the US. It entered the international arena in Japan
in 1986 with Fujitsu
and Nissho Iwai, and developed a Japanese language
version of CompuServe called NIFTY-Serve in 1989. In 1993, CompuServe Hong Kong was launched with a joint-venture with Hutchison Telecom and were able to acquire 50,000 customers predating the Dialup ISP frenzy. During the period 1994-1995 Fujitsu and CompuServe co-developed WorldsAway
, an interactive Virtual World
which as of 2010 is still running and operating as VZones. With the original world that launched on Compuserve back in 1995 known as the Dreamscape
still operating. In the late 1980s, it was possible to log into CompuServe via worldwide X.25
packet switching
networks, but gradually it introduced its own direct dialup access network in many countries, a more economical solution. With its network expansion, CompuServe also extended the marketing of its commercial services, opening branches in London and Munich.
connectivity, albeit limited access, as early as 1989 when it connected its proprietary e-mail
service to allow incoming and outgoing messages to other Internet e-mail addresses.
In the early 1990s, CompuServe was enormously popular, with hundreds of thousands of users visiting its thousands of moderated Forums, forerunners to the endless variety of discussion sites on the Web today. (Like the Web, many Forums were managed by independent producers who then administered the Forum and recruited moderators, called "sysops
".) Among these were many in which hardware
and software companies offered customer support
. This broadened the audience from primarily business
users to the technical "geek
" crowd, some of which migrated over from the Byte Magazine's Bix online service
. Over time, CompuServe also attracted the general public with a wide spectrum of Forums devoted to interests such as show business, including Entertainment Drive, CompuServe's sole content investment, founded by Michael Bolanos, current events, sports, politics, and more. In 1992, CompuServe and Eliot Stein's ShowBiz Forum hosted the industry's first electronic movie press kit, for the Universal computer-themed feature film Sneakers
; the film's director, Phil Alden Robinson
, participated in online chats with ShowBiz Forum members to promote the picture.
In 1992, CompuServe hosted the first known WYSIWYG
e-mail content and forum posts. Fonts, colors and emoticons were encoded into 7-bit text-based messages via the CompuServe navigation software NavCIS
, covering DOS and early Windows 3.1 systems. Introduction of a Windows-based WinCIM
(or Windows
CompuServe Information Manager) allowed point-and-click
interaction with the service via an accelerated HMI communications protocol. For some areas of the service which did not support HMI, the older, text-based interface could be utilized. WinCIM also allowed caching of Forum messages, news articles and e-mail, so that reading and posting could be performed off-line, without incurring hourly connect costs. Previously, this was a luxury of the NavCIS
, AutoSIG and TapCIS
applications for power user
s.
One of the big advantages of CIS over Internet was that the users could purchase services and software from other CompuServe members using their CompuServe account.
During the early 1990s the hourly rate fell from over $10 an hour to $1.95 an hour. In March 1992, it launched online signups with credit card based payments and a desktop application to connect online and check emails. In April 1995, CompuServe topped three million members, still the largest online service provider, and launched its NetLauncher service, providing WWW access capability via the Spry
Mosaic
browser. AOL, however, introduced a far cheaper flat-rate, unlimited-time, advertisement-supported price plan in the US to compete with CompuServe's hourly charges. In conjunction with AOL's marketing campaigns, this caused a significant loss of customers until CompuServe responded with a similar plan of its own at $24.95 per month in late 1997.
As the World Wide Web grew in popularity with the general public, company after company closed their once-busy CompuServe customer support forums to offer customer support to a larger audience directly through company website
s, an area which the CompuServe forums of the time could not address because they had not yet introduced universal WWW access.
In 1992 CompuServe acquired Mark Cuban
's company, MicroSolutions.
In 1997 CompuServe began converting its vaunted forums from its proprietary Host-Micro Interface (HMI) to HTML
web standards.
digits in the form 7xxxx,xx - a legacy of PDP-10
architecture - (later nine octal digits in the form 7xxxx,xxxx and finally ten octal digits in the form 1xxxxx,xxxx) that were generated in advance and issued on printed "Snap Paks". The Internet e-mail address of a CompuServe user was their user ID in the form xxxxx.xxxx@compuserve.com where the comma in the original ID was replaced with a period. In 1996, users were allowed to create an alias for their Internet e-mail address, which could also be used for a personal web page; the longest-term members were allowed first choice of the new addresses. In 1998, users were offered the option of switching their mailbox to a newer system that provided POP3 access via the Internet, so that any Internet mail program could be used. Current CompuServe email addresses look like XXXXXX@cs.com for users of the CompuServe 2000 service.
online service provider
, by 1987 CompuServe had 380,000 subscribers, compared to 320,000 at the Dow Jones News/Retrieval
, 80,000 at The Source, and 70,000 at GEnie
.
) to standardize the images so they could be shared among different microcomputer platforms. With the introduction of more powerful machines, universally supporting color, CompuServe introduced the much more capable GIF format, invented by Steve Wilhite
. GIF went on to become the de facto standard for 8-bit images on the Internet in the early and mid 1990s.
CompuServe, and its outside telecommunications attorney, Randy May, led the appeals before the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) to exempt data networks from having to pay the Common Carrier Access Charge (CCAC) which was levied by the telephone Local Exchange Carrier
s (primarily the Baby Bell companies) on long distance carriers. The primary argument was that data networking was a brand new industry, and the country would be better served by not exposing this important new industry to the aberrations of the voice telephone economics (the CCAC is the mechanism used to subsidize the cost of local telephone service from long distance revenue). The FCC agreed with CompuServe's position, and the consequence is that all dial-up networking in the United States
, whether on private networks or the public Internet, is much less expensive than it otherwise would have been.
In 1991, CompuServe was sued for defamation in one of the early cases testing the application of traditional law on the Internet in Cubby v. CompuServe. Although defamatory content was posted on one of its forums, CompuServe was not liable for this content because it was unaware of the content and did not exercise editorial control over the forum.
In 1995, CompuServe blocked access to sex
-oriented newsgroup
s after being pressured by Bavaria
n prosecutors. In 1997, after CompuServe reopened the newsfeeds, Felix Somm, the former managing director for CompuServe Germany
, was charged with violating German child pornography
law
s because of the material CompuServe's network was carrying into Germany. He was convicted and sentenced to two years probation on May 28, 1998. He was cleared on appeal on November 17, 1999. The requirement for censorship
in Germany caused some loss of German members.
In 1996, CEO Maury Cox launched the WOW! initiative within CompuServe. The objective was to create a new generation of consumer information services which could be built on the revenue models brought to the market by AOL and to offer consumers a new rich visual experience. WOW! was the first internet service to be offered with a monthly "unlimited" rate ($17.95), and stood out because of its brightly colored, seemingly hand-drawn pages. The WOW! service would also implement a parental control technology so that parents could limit and monitor the online activities of their children. A key component of this was a 'white list' of web sites that had been vetted by a team of CompuServe editors to ensure that the sites had content appropriate for children. The service was widely advertised on TV as a 'family friendly' service.
The WOW! team was designed to be a 'skunk works
', with its core marketing and technology teams housed at a location away from the CompuServe corporate headquarters. Most of the leadership and team, headed by Scott Kauffman
formerly of Time Warner, was recruited from outside the company.
To fund WOW!, Cox convinced H&R Block that the equity capital market should be tapped through a public stock offering. Block agreed, and subsequently 20% of CompuServe was sold via an Initial Public Offering (IPO), raising nearly $200 million for the company.
WOW! was not successful. CompuServe's traditional customers were not enthusiastic about the new user interface which required the Microsoft Windows platform. The first release of this program was quite buggy
, with many random shutdowns of the service and loss of email messages. The service developed a small, but very loyal fan base; however, this was not enough. CompuServe "shut down" the service on January 31, 1997. There were a strong group of "WOWIES" who fought to revive it after its demise, and stay connected through chat groups and a web ring. This group believes they were "sold out" by CompuServe because the service was being bought out by AOL, who began offering a $19.95 unlimited service as it was shutting down WOW!.
dialup modems deployed in the network would crash under high call volumes).
For the first time in decades, CompuServe began losing money, and at a prodigious rate. An effort, codenamed 'Red-Dog', was initiated to convert CompuServe's long-time PDP-10 based technologies over to servers based on Intel x86 architectures and the Microsoft Windows NT operating system.
H&R Block was going through its own management changes at the same time. Henry Bloch retired as CEO, and his son, Tom Bloch, was named as his successor. When Tom Bloch resigned to become a public school teacher, he was replaced by Richard Brown, who had formerly been one of the top executives of Ameritech
. Dick Brown soon left to take the job as CEO of EDS
, and the H&R Block Board of Directors appointed Frank Salizzoni, a member of the HRB Board, to serve as CEO of H&R Block. It was during Salizzoni's tenure as CEO that H&R Block's Board of Directors made the decision to divest CompuServe. Maury Cox left the helm as CompuServe's CEO, to be replaced by Bob Massey. Massey had a short tenure in this role, and was relieved in 1997. Frank Salizzoni became the acting CEO of CompuServe from this time until its sale.
In 1997, H&R Block announced its intention to divest itself of CompuServe. A number of potential buyers came to the forefront, but the terms they offered were unacceptable to H&R Block management. One would have involved a leveraged buyout which would have saddled the CompuServe shareholders with substantial debt. AOL, the most likely buyer, made several offers to purchase CompuServe using AOL stock, but H&R Block management sought cash, or at least a higher quality stock.
In February 1998, John W. Sidgmore
, then the vice-chairman of WorldCom
, and the former CEO of UUNET
, devised a complex transaction which ultimately met the goals of all parties. Step one was that WorldCom purchased all the shares of CompuServe with $1.2 billion of WCOM stock. Literally the next day, WorldCom sold the CompuServe Information Service portion of the company to AOL, retaining the CompuServe Network Services portion. AOL in turn sold its networking division, Advanced Network Services (ANS), to WorldCom. Sidgmore said that at this point the world was in balance: the accountants were doing taxes, AOL was doing information services, and WorldCom was doing networks.
The only reason the H&R Block management team agreed to accept WCOM stock in exchange for the ownership of CompuServe was they had been able to work out a deal to sell the WCOM stock for $1.2 billion in cash immediately after the transaction. In the end, H&R Block received $1.2 billion for a company it had paid $20 million for eighteen years earlier, during which it also generated substantial profits.
After the WorldCom acquisition, CompuServe Network Services was renamed WorldCom Advanced Networks, and continued to operate as a discrete company within WorldCom after being combined with AOL's network subsidiary, ANS, and an existing WorldCom networking company called Gridnet. In 1999, Worldcom acquired MCI and became MCI WorldCom, WorldCom Advanced Networks briefly became MCI WorldCom Advanced Networks. WorldCom was later unsuccessful in its bid to purchase Sprint. MCI WorldCom Advanced Networks was ultimately absorbed into UUNET. Soon thereafter, WorldCom began its spiral to bankruptcy, re-emerging as MCI. In 2006, MCI was sold to Verizon. As a result, the organization that had once been the networking business within CompuServe is now part of Verizon Business.
In the process of splitting CompuServe into its two major business, CompuServe Information Services and CompuServe Network Services, WorldCom and AOL both desired to make use of the CompuServe name and trademarks. Consequently, a jointly owned holding company was formed for no other purpose than to hold title to various trademarks, patents and other intellectual property, and to license that intellectual property at no cost to both WorldCom (now Verizon) and AOL.
CompuServe Information Services is now positioned as the value market provider for several million customers, as part of the AOL Web Products Group. Recent U.S. versions of the CompuServe client
software — essentially an enhanced web browser
— use the Gecko layout engine
developed for Mozilla
, within a derivative of the AOL client and using the AOL dialup network. The previous CompuServe service offering, referred to as "CompuServe Classic", remains available in the US and also in other countries where CompuServe 2000 is not offered, such as the UK. In Germany, CompuServe 2000 was introduced in 1999 and abolished in 2001 because of failure on the German market, but the CompuServe Classic product also remains available. However, since then CompuServe Germany has introduced its own products for dialup and DSL internet access, and its own client software (called CompuServe 4.5 light).
In January 2007, the CompuServe brand managers at AOL sent an e-mail to members stating that it had no plans for compatibility with the Windows Vista
operating system, and suggested to its members who wished to use Vista switch to their AOL branded service. Like many older programs, however, it can be run under Windows Vista in compatibility mode
. In July 2007, it was announced that CompuServe Pacific would close down its operations on August 31, 2007. In September 2007, it was announced that CompuServe France would close down its operations on November 30, 2007. In the Pacific region (Australia
, New Zealand
, etc.) Fujitsu Australia ran the CompuServe Pacific franchise, which in 1998 had 35,000 customers. Towards the end of its operations in that area, it was thought to have far fewer because of CompuServe Pacific's pricing plans, which have not been changed since 1998 (e.g., A$
14.95 for 2 hours per month). In July 2008, CompuServe Germany informed its customers that it will be closing down its operations on July 31, 2008. Its legacy service "CompuServe Classic" would not be affected by this decision.
CompuServe forums today are more tightly linked to CompuServe channels. Compuserve.com currently runs a slightly trimmed-down version of the now-defunct Netscape.com Web portal, the latter of which was shut down in 2006.
CompuServe announced April 15, 2009, that CompuServe Classic "will no longer operate as an Internet Service Provider" and would close on June 30, 2009. All CompuServe Classic services, including OurWorld Web pages, were taken offline as of that date. CompuServe Classic e-mail users will be able to continue using their CompuServe e-mail addresses via a new e-mail system. The newer version of CompuServe, known as CompuServe 2000, is unaffected and AOL has said that it will continue to operate.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates. Since the purchase of CompuServe's Information Services Division by AOL, the CompuServe Information Service has operated as an online service provider
Online service provider
An online service provider can for example be an internet service provider, email provider, news provider , entertainment provider , search, e-shopping site , e-finance or e-banking site, e-health site, e-government site, Wikipedia, Usenet...
and an Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
. The original CompuServe Information Service, later rebranded as CompuServe Classic, was shut down July 1, 2009. The newer version of the service, CompuServe 2000, continues to operate.
Founding
CompuServe was founded in 1969 as Compu-Serv Network, Inc. (the earliest advertising shows the name with initial caps) in Columbus, Ohio, as a subsidiary of Golden United Life Insurance. While Jeffrey Wilkins, the son-in-law of Golden United founder Harry Gard, Sr., is widely credited as the first president of CompuServe, the initial president was actually Dr. John R. Goltz. Goltz and Wilkins were both graduate students in Electrical EngineeringElectrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. Early employees also recruited from the University of Arizona included Sandy Trevor (inventor of the CompuServe CB Simulator
CB Simulator
CompuServe CB Simulator was the first online chat service. It was developed by a CompuServe executive, Alexander "Sandy" Trevor, and released by CompuServe in 1980....
chat system), Doug Chinnock, and Larry Shelley. Wilkins replaced Goltz as CEO within the first year of operation.
The company objectives were twofold: to provide in-house computer processing support to Golden United Life Insurance Co.; and to develop as an independent business in the computer time-sharing
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
industry, by renting time on its PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...
midrange computer
Midrange computer
Midrange computers, or midrange systems, are a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframe computers and microcomputers.The class emerged in the 1960s and machines were generally known at the time as minicomputers - especially models from Digital Equipment Corporation , Data General,...
s during business hours
Business hours
Business hours are the hours during the day in which business is commonly conducted. Typical business hours vary widely by country. By observing common informal standards for business hours, workers may communicate with each other more easily and find a convenient divide between work life and...
. It was spun off as a separate company in 1975, trading on the NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
under the symbol CMPU.
Concurrently, the company recruited executives who shifted the focus from offering time-sharing services, in which customers wrote their own applications, to one that was focused on packaged applications. The first of these new executives was Robert Tillson, who left Service Bureau Corporation (then a subsidiary of Control Data, but originally formed as a division of IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
) to become CompuServe's Executive Vice President of Marketing. He then recruited Charles McCall (who followed Jeff Wilkins as CEO, and later became CEO of HBOC), Maury Cox (who became CEO after the departure of McCall), and Robert Massey (who was the last CEO of CompuServe). Barry Berkov was recruited from Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
to head product development and marketing.
In 1977, CompuServ's board changed the company's name to CompuServe Incorporated. In 1980, H&R Block
H&R Block
H&R Block is a tax preparation company in the United States, claiming more than 22 million customers worldwide, with offices in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The Kansas City-based company also offers banking, personal finance and business consulting services.Founded in 1955 by brothers...
acquired CompuServe. The purchase provided cash to expand operations, and helped H&R Block diversify their tax-season based earnings.
Technology
The original 1969 dial-up technology was fairly simple — the local phone number in Cleveland, for example, was merely a line connected to a time-division multiplexer which connected via a leased line to a matched multiplexer in Columbus, which was connected to a time-sharing host system. Later, the central multiplexers in Columbus were replaced with PDP-8PDP-8
The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
minicomputers, and the PDP-8s were connected to a DEC PDP-15 minicomputer that acted as switches so a phone number was not tied to a particular destination host. Finally, CompuServe developed its own packet switching
Packet switching
Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably sized blocks, called packets. Packet switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams over a shared network...
network, implemented on DEC PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
minicomputers acting as network nodes that were installed throughout the US (and later, in other countries) and interconnected. Over time, the CompuServe network evolved into a sophisticated multi-tiered network incorporating Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...
, Frame relay
Frame relay
Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies the physical and logical link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology...
, Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
and X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
technologies.
While best known for its consumer services division, the CompuServe Information Service, CompuServe was also a world leader in other commercial services. One of these was the Financial Services group, which collected and consolidated financial data from myriad data feeds, including CompuStat
Compustat
Compustat is a database of financial, statistical and market information on active and inactive global companies throughout the world. The service began in 1962....
, Disclosure, I/B/E/S as well as the price/quote feeds from the major exchanges. CompuServe developed extensive screening and reporting tools that were used by every investment bank on Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
.
The consumer information service had been developed almost clandestinely, in 1978, and marketed as MicroNET through Radio Shack. Many within the company did not favor the project; it was called schlock time-sharing by the commercial time-sharing sales force. It was allowed to exist initially because consumers used the computers during evening hours, when the CompuServe computers were otherwise idle. As it became evident that it would be a hit, CompuServe dropped the MicroNET name in favor of their own, and by 1987, CompuServe Information Service would be 50% of CompuServe revenues. CompuServe's origin was approximately concurrent with that of The Source. Both services were operating in early 1979, being the first online services
Online service provider
An online service provider can for example be an internet service provider, email provider, news provider , entertainment provider , search, e-shopping site , e-finance or e-banking site, e-health site, e-government site, Wikipedia, Usenet...
.
By the mid-1980s CompuServe was one of the largest information and networking services companies in existence, and it was the largest consumer information service in the world. It operated commercial branches in more than 30 US cities, selling primarily network services to major corporations throughout the United States. Consumer accounts could be bought in most computer stores (a box with an instruction manual and a trial account login) and awareness of this service was extremely high. The service continued to improve in terms of user interface and offerings, and in 1989 CompuServe purchased and dismantled one of its main competitors, The Source.
The corporate culture was entrepreneurial, encouraging "skunkworks project
Skunkworks project
A skunkworks project is one typically developed by a small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation. The term typically refers to technology projects, and originated with Skunk Works, an official alias for the Lockheed...
s". Alexander "Sandy" Trevor secluded himself for a weekend, writing the "CB Simulator", a chat system that soon became one of CIS's most popular features. Instead of hiring employees to manage the forums, they contracted with sysops, who received compensation based on the success of their own forum's boards, libraries, and chat areas.
Selling connectivity
Another major unit of CompuServe, the CompuServe Network Services, was formed in 1982 to generate revenue by selling connectivity on the nationwide packet network CompuServe had built to support its time-sharing service. CompuServe designed and manufactured its own network processors, based on the DEC PDP-11PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
, and wrote all the software that ran in the network. Often (and erroneously) called an 'X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
network, the CompuServe network implemented a mixture of standardized and proprietary layers throughout the network. One of the proprietary layers was called 'Adaptive Routing. The Adaptive Routing system implemented two powerful features. One is that network operated entirely in a self-discovery mode. When a new switch was added to the network by connecting it to a neighbor via a leased telephone circuit, the new switch was discovered and absorbed into the network without explicit configuration. To change the network configuration, all that was needed was to add or remove connections, and the network would automatically reconfigure. The second feature implemented by Adaptive Routing was often talked about in network engineering circles, but was implemented only by CNS - establishing connection paths on the basis of real-time performance measurements. As one circuit became busy, traffic was diverted to alternative paths to prevent overloading and poor performance for users.
While the CNS network was not itself based on the X.25 protocol, the network presented a standard X.25 interface to the outside world, providing dialup connectivity to corporate hosts, and allowing CompuServe to form alliances with private networks Tymnet
Tymnet
Tymnet was an international data communications network headquartered in San Jose, California that used virtual call packet switched technology and X.25, SNA/SDLC, ASCII and BSC interfaces to connect host computers at thousands of large companies, educational institutions, and government agencies....
and Telenet
Telenet
Telenet was a commercial packet switched network which went into service in 1974. It was the first packet-switched network service that was available to the general public. Various commercial and government interests paid monthly fees for dedicated lines connecting their computers and local...
, among others, giving CompuServe the largest selection of local dialup phone connections in the world. Other networks permitted CompuServe access to still more locations, including international locations, usually with substantial connect-time surcharges. It was common in the early 1980s to pay a $30-per-hour charge to connect to CompuServe, which at the time cost $5 to $6 per hour without the connect-time surcharges. This resulted in the company being nicknamed CompuSpend, Compu$erve or CI$.
CNS has been the primary supplier of dial-up communications for credit-card authorizations for over 20 years, a competence developed through its long relationship with Visa International. At the peak of this line of business, CompuServe carried millions of authorization transactions each month, representing several billion dollars of consumer purchase transactions. For many businesses an always-on connection is an extravagance, and a dialup option makes better sense. Today this service remains in operation, deeply embedded within Verizon (see below). There are no other competitors remaining in this market.
The company was notable for introducing a number of online services to personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
users. CompuServe began offering electronic mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
capabilities and technical support to commercial customers in 1978 under the name Infoplex, and was also a pioneer in the real-time chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
market with its CB Simulator
CB Simulator
CompuServe CB Simulator was the first online chat service. It was developed by a CompuServe executive, Alexander "Sandy" Trevor, and released by CompuServe in 1980....
service introduced in 1980.
File transfers
Around 1981, CompuServe introduced their CompuServe B protocolB protocol
CompuServe's B protocol, also known as CIS B, is a file transfer protocol developed for their commercial online service in 1981. The protocol was later expanded in the B Plus or QuickB version...
, a file transfer protocol
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
, allowing users to send files to each other. This was later expanded to the higher-performance B+ version, intended for downloads from CIS itself. Although the B+ protocol was not widely supported by other software, it was used by default for some time on CIS itself. The B+ protocol was later extended to include the Host-Micro Interface (HMI) a mechanism for communicating commands and transaction requests to a server application running on the mainframes. HMI could be used by "front end" client software to present a GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
-based interface to CIS, without having to use the error-prone CLI to route commands.
CompuServe began to expand its reach outside the US. It entered the international arena in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in 1986 with Fujitsu
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
and Nissho Iwai, and developed a Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
version of CompuServe called NIFTY-Serve in 1989. In 1993, CompuServe Hong Kong was launched with a joint-venture with Hutchison Telecom and were able to acquire 50,000 customers predating the Dialup ISP frenzy. During the period 1994-1995 Fujitsu and CompuServe co-developed WorldsAway
WorldsAway
WorldsAway is an online graphical "virtual chat" environment in which users designed their own two dimensionally represented avatars. It was one of the first visual virtual worlds. In 1996 it was one of the top 20 most popular forums on Compuserve.- History :...
, an interactive Virtual World
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...
which as of 2010 is still running and operating as VZones. With the original world that launched on Compuserve back in 1995 known as the Dreamscape
Dreamscape (chat)
Dreamscape is a graphical online chat environment owned by Stratagem Corporation. Once one becomes a member and download the software, one enters the world and chooses an avatar, which is a physical representation of oneself. One's avatar can talk , move, gesture, use facial expressions, and is...
still operating. In the late 1980s, it was possible to log into CompuServe via worldwide X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
packet switching
Packet switching
Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably sized blocks, called packets. Packet switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams over a shared network...
networks, but gradually it introduced its own direct dialup access network in many countries, a more economical solution. With its network expansion, CompuServe also extended the marketing of its commercial services, opening branches in London and Munich.
World Wide Web
CompuServe was the first online service to offer InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
connectivity, albeit limited access, as early as 1989 when it connected its proprietary e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
service to allow incoming and outgoing messages to other Internet e-mail addresses.
In the early 1990s, CompuServe was enormously popular, with hundreds of thousands of users visiting its thousands of moderated Forums, forerunners to the endless variety of discussion sites on the Web today. (Like the Web, many Forums were managed by independent producers who then administered the Forum and recruited moderators, called "sysops
SysOp
A sysop is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system or an online service virtual community. It may also be used to refer to administrators of other Internet-based network services....
".) Among these were many in which hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
and software companies offered customer support
Customer support
Customer support is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product....
. This broadened the audience from primarily business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
users to the technical "geek
Geek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...
" crowd, some of which migrated over from the Byte Magazine's Bix online service
Byte Information Exchange
Byte Information eXchange was an online service created around 1985 by Byte magazine. It was a text-only Bulletin Board System-style site running the CoSy conferencing software running originally on an Arete multiprocessor system based on Motorola 68000s. When that didn't scale well, it was...
. Over time, CompuServe also attracted the general public with a wide spectrum of Forums devoted to interests such as show business, including Entertainment Drive, CompuServe's sole content investment, founded by Michael Bolanos, current events, sports, politics, and more. In 1992, CompuServe and Eliot Stein's ShowBiz Forum hosted the industry's first electronic movie press kit, for the Universal computer-themed feature film Sneakers
Sneakers (film)
Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes, and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn...
; the film's director, Phil Alden Robinson
Phil Alden Robinson
Phil Alden Robinson is an American film director and screenwriter whose films include Field of Dreams, Sneakers and The Sum of All Fears.-Life and career:...
, participated in online chats with ShowBiz Forum members to promote the picture.
In 1992, CompuServe hosted the first known WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
e-mail content and forum posts. Fonts, colors and emoticons were encoded into 7-bit text-based messages via the CompuServe navigation software NavCIS
NavCIS
NavCIS, originally known as CompuServe Navigator, is a client program which was used to automate connections to the CompuServe Information Service at a time when online use was priced by the minute...
, covering DOS and early Windows 3.1 systems. Introduction of a Windows-based WinCIM
WinCIM
CompuServe Information Manager was CompuServe Information Service's client software. The program provided a GUI front end to the text-based CompuServe service that was at the time accessed using a standard terminal program with alphanumerical shortcuts.Issued at the same time as the GUI-only...
(or Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
CompuServe Information Manager) allowed point-and-click
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
interaction with the service via an accelerated HMI communications protocol. For some areas of the service which did not support HMI, the older, text-based interface could be utilized. WinCIM also allowed caching of Forum messages, news articles and e-mail, so that reading and posting could be performed off-line, without incurring hourly connect costs. Previously, this was a luxury of the NavCIS
NavCIS
NavCIS, originally known as CompuServe Navigator, is a client program which was used to automate connections to the CompuServe Information Service at a time when online use was priced by the minute...
, AutoSIG and TapCIS
TapCIS
TAPCIS, was an automated utility that speeded up access to, and management of, CompuServe email accounts and forum memberships for PC users from 1981 until 2004 when advances in CompuServe technology rendered this highly-regarded little DOS-based program obsolete...
applications for power user
Power user
A power user is a user of a personal computer who has the ability to use advanced features of programs which are beyond the abilities of "normal" users, but is not necessarily capable of programming and system administration...
s.
One of the big advantages of CIS over Internet was that the users could purchase services and software from other CompuServe members using their CompuServe account.
During the early 1990s the hourly rate fell from over $10 an hour to $1.95 an hour. In March 1992, it launched online signups with credit card based payments and a desktop application to connect online and check emails. In April 1995, CompuServe topped three million members, still the largest online service provider, and launched its NetLauncher service, providing WWW access capability via the Spry
Internet in a Box
Internet in a Box was one of the first commercially available Internet connection software packages available for sale to the public. Spry, Inc...
Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
browser. AOL, however, introduced a far cheaper flat-rate, unlimited-time, advertisement-supported price plan in the US to compete with CompuServe's hourly charges. In conjunction with AOL's marketing campaigns, this caused a significant loss of customers until CompuServe responded with a similar plan of its own at $24.95 per month in late 1997.
As the World Wide Web grew in popularity with the general public, company after company closed their once-busy CompuServe customer support forums to offer customer support to a larger audience directly through company website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s, an area which the CompuServe forums of the time could not address because they had not yet introduced universal WWW access.
In 1992 CompuServe acquired Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is an American business magnate and investor. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network HDNet....
's company, MicroSolutions.
In 1997 CompuServe began converting its vaunted forums from its proprietary Host-Micro Interface (HMI) to HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
web standards.
User IDs and e-mail addresses
The original CompuServe user IDs consisted of seven octalOctal
The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the base-8 number system, and uses the digits 0 to 7. Numerals can be made from binary numerals by grouping consecutive binary digits into groups of three...
digits in the form 7xxxx,xx - a legacy of PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...
architecture - (later nine octal digits in the form 7xxxx,xxxx and finally ten octal digits in the form 1xxxxx,xxxx) that were generated in advance and issued on printed "Snap Paks". The Internet e-mail address of a CompuServe user was their user ID in the form xxxxx.xxxx@compuserve.com where the comma in the original ID was replaced with a period. In 1996, users were allowed to create an alias for their Internet e-mail address, which could also be used for a personal web page; the longest-term members were allowed first choice of the new addresses. In 1998, users were offered the option of switching their mailbox to a newer system that provided POP3 access via the Internet, so that any Internet mail program could be used. Current CompuServe email addresses look like XXXXXX@cs.com for users of the CompuServe 2000 service.
Custom portals
CompuServe has a long history offering a custom portal of the CompuServe Information Service to the airline industry. Beginning in the 1970s, CompuServe offered a customized version of its service that allows pilots and flight attendants to bid for flight schedules with their airline. CompuServe offered customized solutions to other industries as well, including a service called CompuServe for Lawyers.Market share
Long the largest videotexVideotex
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
online service provider
Online service provider
An online service provider can for example be an internet service provider, email provider, news provider , entertainment provider , search, e-shopping site , e-finance or e-banking site, e-health site, e-government site, Wikipedia, Usenet...
, by 1987 CompuServe had 380,000 subscribers, compared to 320,000 at the Dow Jones News/Retrieval
Dow Jones News/Retrieval
Dow Jones News/Retrieval was an online service offered by Dow Jones & Company beginning in 1973, which greatly expanded its subscriber numbers during the 1980s...
, 80,000 at The Source, and 70,000 at GEnie
GEnie
GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business - GEIS that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users...
.
Technology and law
One popular use of CompuServe in the 1980s was file exchange, particularly pictures. Indeed, in 1985 it hosted perhaps the first online comic in the world, Witches and Stitches. CompuServe introduced a simple black-and-white image format known as RLE (run-length-encodingRun-length encoding
Run-length encoding is a very simple form of data compression in which runs of data are stored as a single data value and count, rather than as the original run...
) to standardize the images so they could be shared among different microcomputer platforms. With the introduction of more powerful machines, universally supporting color, CompuServe introduced the much more capable GIF format, invented by Steve Wilhite
Steve Wilhite
Steve Wilhite of CompuServe invented the GIF file format which went on to become the de facto standard for 8-bit images on the Internet until the late 1990s....
. GIF went on to become the de facto standard for 8-bit images on the Internet in the early and mid 1990s.
CompuServe, and its outside telecommunications attorney, Randy May, led the appeals before the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) to exempt data networks from having to pay the Common Carrier Access Charge (CCAC) which was levied by the telephone Local Exchange Carrier
Local exchange carrier
Local Exchange Carrier is a regulatory term in telecommunications for the local telephone company.In the United States, wireline telephone companies are divided into two large categories: long distance and local...
s (primarily the Baby Bell companies) on long distance carriers. The primary argument was that data networking was a brand new industry, and the country would be better served by not exposing this important new industry to the aberrations of the voice telephone economics (the CCAC is the mechanism used to subsidize the cost of local telephone service from long distance revenue). The FCC agreed with CompuServe's position, and the consequence is that all dial-up networking in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, whether on private networks or the public Internet, is much less expensive than it otherwise would have been.
In 1991, CompuServe was sued for defamation in one of the early cases testing the application of traditional law on the Internet in Cubby v. CompuServe. Although defamatory content was posted on one of its forums, CompuServe was not liable for this content because it was unaware of the content and did not exercise editorial control over the forum.
In 1995, CompuServe blocked access to sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
-oriented newsgroup
Newsgroup
A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s after being pressured by Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n prosecutors. In 1997, after CompuServe reopened the newsfeeds, Felix Somm, the former managing director for CompuServe Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, was charged with violating German child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
s because of the material CompuServe's network was carrying into Germany. He was convicted and sentenced to two years probation on May 28, 1998. He was cleared on appeal on November 17, 1999. The requirement for censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
in Germany caused some loss of German members.
WOW!
In 1996, CEO Maury Cox launched the WOW! initiative within CompuServe. The objective was to create a new generation of consumer information services which could be built on the revenue models brought to the market by AOL and to offer consumers a new rich visual experience. WOW! was the first internet service to be offered with a monthly "unlimited" rate ($17.95), and stood out because of its brightly colored, seemingly hand-drawn pages. The WOW! service would also implement a parental control technology so that parents could limit and monitor the online activities of their children. A key component of this was a 'white list' of web sites that had been vetted by a team of CompuServe editors to ensure that the sites had content appropriate for children. The service was widely advertised on TV as a 'family friendly' service.
The WOW! team was designed to be a 'skunk works
Skunk works
Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs , formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. Skunk Works is responsible for a number of famous aircraft designs, including the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk, and the F-22 Raptor...
', with its core marketing and technology teams housed at a location away from the CompuServe corporate headquarters. Most of the leadership and team, headed by Scott Kauffman
Scott Kauffman
Scott L. Kauffman is an American business manager.He was born in Princeton, New Jersey to Ellwood and Shirley Kauffman, and grew up with his sister Jane and brothers Geoffrey and Matthew. In 1973 he appeared briefly in Steven E...
formerly of Time Warner, was recruited from outside the company.
To fund WOW!, Cox convinced H&R Block that the equity capital market should be tapped through a public stock offering. Block agreed, and subsequently 20% of CompuServe was sold via an Initial Public Offering (IPO), raising nearly $200 million for the company.
WOW! was not successful. CompuServe's traditional customers were not enthusiastic about the new user interface which required the Microsoft Windows platform. The first release of this program was quite buggy
Software bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
, with many random shutdowns of the service and loss of email messages. The service developed a small, but very loyal fan base; however, this was not enough. CompuServe "shut down" the service on January 31, 1997. There were a strong group of "WOWIES" who fought to revive it after its demise, and stay connected through chat groups and a web ring. This group believes they were "sold out" by CompuServe because the service was being bought out by AOL, who began offering a $19.95 unlimited service as it was shutting down WOW!.
CompuServe phone card
In 1996, CompuServe introduced a long distance phone card known as the CompuServe E-mail Message Center. More than just a long-distance calling card, it offered text-to-speech synthesis of messages in the user's inbox, fax, news and concierge services.WorldCom acquisition and deal with AOL
The battle for customers between AOL and CompuServe became one of handing customers back and forth, using free hours and other enticements. There were technical problems,(the thousands of new generation U.S. RoboticsU.S. Robotics
USRobotics Corporation is a company that makes computer modems and related products. It sold high-speed modems in the 1980s, and had a reputation for high quality and compatibility. With the reduced usage of voiceband modems in North America in the early 21st century, USR is now one of the few...
dialup modems deployed in the network would crash under high call volumes).
For the first time in decades, CompuServe began losing money, and at a prodigious rate. An effort, codenamed 'Red-Dog', was initiated to convert CompuServe's long-time PDP-10 based technologies over to servers based on Intel x86 architectures and the Microsoft Windows NT operating system.
H&R Block was going through its own management changes at the same time. Henry Bloch retired as CEO, and his son, Tom Bloch, was named as his successor. When Tom Bloch resigned to become a public school teacher, he was replaced by Richard Brown, who had formerly been one of the top executives of Ameritech
Ameritech
AT&T Teleholdings, Inc., formerly known as Ameritech Corporation , was a U.S. telecommunications company that arose out of the 1984 AT&T divestiture. Ameritech was one of the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies that was created following the breakup of the Bell System...
. Dick Brown soon left to take the job as CEO of EDS
Electronic Data Systems
HP Enterprise Services is the global business and technology services division of Hewlett Packard's HP Enterprise Business strategic business unit. It was formed by the combination of HP's legacy services consulting and outsourcing business and the integration of acquired Electronic Data Systems,...
, and the H&R Block Board of Directors appointed Frank Salizzoni, a member of the HRB Board, to serve as CEO of H&R Block. It was during Salizzoni's tenure as CEO that H&R Block's Board of Directors made the decision to divest CompuServe. Maury Cox left the helm as CompuServe's CEO, to be replaced by Bob Massey. Massey had a short tenure in this role, and was relieved in 1997. Frank Salizzoni became the acting CEO of CompuServe from this time until its sale.
In 1997, H&R Block announced its intention to divest itself of CompuServe. A number of potential buyers came to the forefront, but the terms they offered were unacceptable to H&R Block management. One would have involved a leveraged buyout which would have saddled the CompuServe shareholders with substantial debt. AOL, the most likely buyer, made several offers to purchase CompuServe using AOL stock, but H&R Block management sought cash, or at least a higher quality stock.
In February 1998, John W. Sidgmore
John W. Sidgmore
John W. Sidgmore became the Chief Executive Officer of UUNET Technologies in June 1994. UUNET was purchased by MFS, later taken over by WorldCom, which eventually bought MCI. He later became WorldCom's Chief Operations Officer. Sidgmore worked to revive WorldCom after disgraced CEO Bernard Ebbers...
, then the vice-chairman of WorldCom
MCI Inc.
MCI, Inc. is an American telecommunications subsidiary of Verizon Communications that is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia...
, and the former CEO of UUNET
UUNET
UUNET founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the nine Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was the first commercial Internet service provider...
, devised a complex transaction which ultimately met the goals of all parties. Step one was that WorldCom purchased all the shares of CompuServe with $1.2 billion of WCOM stock. Literally the next day, WorldCom sold the CompuServe Information Service portion of the company to AOL, retaining the CompuServe Network Services portion. AOL in turn sold its networking division, Advanced Network Services (ANS), to WorldCom. Sidgmore said that at this point the world was in balance: the accountants were doing taxes, AOL was doing information services, and WorldCom was doing networks.
The only reason the H&R Block management team agreed to accept WCOM stock in exchange for the ownership of CompuServe was they had been able to work out a deal to sell the WCOM stock for $1.2 billion in cash immediately after the transaction. In the end, H&R Block received $1.2 billion for a company it had paid $20 million for eighteen years earlier, during which it also generated substantial profits.
After the WorldCom acquisition, CompuServe Network Services was renamed WorldCom Advanced Networks, and continued to operate as a discrete company within WorldCom after being combined with AOL's network subsidiary, ANS, and an existing WorldCom networking company called Gridnet. In 1999, Worldcom acquired MCI and became MCI WorldCom, WorldCom Advanced Networks briefly became MCI WorldCom Advanced Networks. WorldCom was later unsuccessful in its bid to purchase Sprint. MCI WorldCom Advanced Networks was ultimately absorbed into UUNET. Soon thereafter, WorldCom began its spiral to bankruptcy, re-emerging as MCI. In 2006, MCI was sold to Verizon. As a result, the organization that had once been the networking business within CompuServe is now part of Verizon Business.
In the process of splitting CompuServe into its two major business, CompuServe Information Services and CompuServe Network Services, WorldCom and AOL both desired to make use of the CompuServe name and trademarks. Consequently, a jointly owned holding company was formed for no other purpose than to hold title to various trademarks, patents and other intellectual property, and to license that intellectual property at no cost to both WorldCom (now Verizon) and AOL.
Post-AOL acquisition
In September 2003 CompuServe Information Service, now a division of AOL, added CompuServe Basic to its product lines, selling via Netscape.com. AOL offered it to AOL members leaving that service, possibly in response to reports earlier that year that AOL was losing significant business to low-cost competitors.CompuServe Information Services is now positioned as the value market provider for several million customers, as part of the AOL Web Products Group. Recent U.S. versions of the CompuServe client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
software — essentially an enhanced web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
— use the Gecko layout engine
Gecko (layout engine)
Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects....
developed for Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
, within a derivative of the AOL client and using the AOL dialup network. The previous CompuServe service offering, referred to as "CompuServe Classic", remains available in the US and also in other countries where CompuServe 2000 is not offered, such as the UK. In Germany, CompuServe 2000 was introduced in 1999 and abolished in 2001 because of failure on the German market, but the CompuServe Classic product also remains available. However, since then CompuServe Germany has introduced its own products for dialup and DSL internet access, and its own client software (called CompuServe 4.5 light).
In January 2007, the CompuServe brand managers at AOL sent an e-mail to members stating that it had no plans for compatibility with the Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
operating system, and suggested to its members who wished to use Vista switch to their AOL branded service. Like many older programs, however, it can be run under Windows Vista in compatibility mode
Compatibility mode
A compatibility mode is a software mechanism in which a computer's operating system emulates an older processor, operating system, and/or hardware platform in order to allow obsolete software to remain compatible with the computer's newer hardware or software....
. In July 2007, it was announced that CompuServe Pacific would close down its operations on August 31, 2007. In September 2007, it was announced that CompuServe France would close down its operations on November 30, 2007. In the Pacific region (Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, etc.) Fujitsu Australia ran the CompuServe Pacific franchise, which in 1998 had 35,000 customers. Towards the end of its operations in that area, it was thought to have far fewer because of CompuServe Pacific's pricing plans, which have not been changed since 1998 (e.g., A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
14.95 for 2 hours per month). In July 2008, CompuServe Germany informed its customers that it will be closing down its operations on July 31, 2008. Its legacy service "CompuServe Classic" would not be affected by this decision.
CompuServe forums today are more tightly linked to CompuServe channels. Compuserve.com currently runs a slightly trimmed-down version of the now-defunct Netscape.com Web portal, the latter of which was shut down in 2006.
CompuServe announced April 15, 2009, that CompuServe Classic "will no longer operate as an Internet Service Provider" and would close on June 30, 2009. All CompuServe Classic services, including OurWorld Web pages, were taken offline as of that date. CompuServe Classic e-mail users will be able to continue using their CompuServe e-mail addresses via a new e-mail system. The newer version of CompuServe, known as CompuServe 2000, is unaffected and AOL has said that it will continue to operate.
Versions
- CompuServe dialer for Windows XPWindows XPWindows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
and VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
(Current version) - CompuServe 2000 5.0 for Windows 95 and 98
- CompuServe 2000 for Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
- CompuServe 2000 5.0 for Macintosh
- CompuServe Classic 4.0.2 for Windows NTWindows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
- CompuServe Classic 2.6.1 for Windows 3.1
- CompuServe Classic 1.22 for MS-DOSMS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
External links
- CompuServe website
- CompuServe UK
- CompuServe Canada
- CompuServe Pacific
- CompuServe Switzerland (in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
) - CompuServe Germany (in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
) - CompuServe France (in FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
) - CompuServe Netherlands (in DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
) - Aviation Special Interest Group
- CompuServe Brings The Information Age Home
- CompuServe Services & Forums list (circa February 2000)