ke their flaws into strengths, in the case of weaknesses. Ways to take advantage of the new upcoming technology so that they can remain or improve their standing in the market, in the case of opportunities. Last but not the least, things that others need to be aware of or things to watch out for are threats, so that the company doesn't lose its market share or its standing. After the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats portion of the paper is done, the paper will then rap everything up into a few paragraphs that will summarize all the suggestions and recommendations that were given in the SWOT analysis section of the paper and the rest of the paper as a whole.
             Historians have always said that "History is a lesson never to be repeated". So as stated with the example of a person, the first thing to be looked at is the company and its history. How the company grew up, things such as mergers, problems that were faced on the way, achievements, innovations of the company, and so on. Then after one knows all the specifications, as with the person, one can move on to understanding the forces against the person or the company, their competition. Finally after being able to understand all these points, one can assist the person properly. American Online was the original mother company that then merged with Time Warner and created the new firm AOL Time Warner, which will be referred to as AOL through out this paper. In January of 2000, this is ranked at number 37 on the Fortune 500 and 98 in the Global 500. This was one of the biggest mergers ever; it faced a lot of opposition from competitors as well as government forces, both of which will be addressed later in this paper.
             There is a nice figure in the appendix that outlines the history of AOL very nicely, titled Figure 1. AOL was founded in 1985 with the goal of providing their main source of revenue, instant access to the internet for its customers....