Newly appointed chairman and CEO of AOL Tim Armstrong arrives in Israel tomorrow. He will be the special guest a GarageGeeks event in Holon hosted by Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi. Armstrong, who was appointed to head AOL in March, will also hold meetings this week with Israeli start-ups.
The connection between AOL and Israel goes back many years. In contrast to Google which has not made a single acquisition in Israel, and Yahoo, which has only acquired one company - Fox Tunes, AOL has already bought four Israeli companies for hundreds of millions of dollars: Mirabilis (which developed ICQ), on-line advertising company Quigo Inc., search technology company Yedda and real-time intelligence automation company Relegence. Local start-up owners will be hoping that AOL enlarges its Israeli portfolio.
According to AOL Israel CEO Avichay Nissenbaum, the aim of Armstrong's visit is to "strengthen the connection between AOL and Israeli companies and to deepen the link between the Israeli high-tech community and AOL."
He added that the fact that 200 of AOL's 8,000 employees are in Israel shows that, "AOL has a strong commitment to the products that these (Israeli) companies develop and he (Armstrong) is aware of the innovation and creativity in Israeli high-tech."
Nissenbaum continued, "We are looking for services and products that are synergetic to AOL's activities and Armstrong will examine, during his visit to Israel, companies that we believe are suited to AOL's profile."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 28, 2009
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