AOL Has a Message for Local Phone Companies

"You've got voice mail."

That's the message AOL Time Warner's (AOL Quote) America Online unit likely is contemplating with a small but significant -- and unreported -- acquisition last week of a privately held Silicon Valley company.

The start-up, eVoice, provided a Web-based alternative to voice mail. In an effort to snatch revenue from the lucrative "enhanced services" bin of offerings from local telephone companies, the 100-employee company in Menlo Park, Calif., provided a voice mailbox to users and notified them of calls by email. One of many start-ups that originally tried supporting a giveaway service with advertising, eVoice eventually started charging customers. Now it's given up and sold to AOL. It notified customers last week that its service would be ending, but it didn't tell them the company had been sold to AOL. People familiar with the transaction said the deal was small; eVoice raised a total of $51 million in venture capital. But the move is potentially meaningful for AOL, far and away the leader in email and instant messaging, if it attempts to add voice mail to its services.

"In AOL's world, messaging is everything," notes Jim Forbes, editor of DEMOletter Mobile Edition, an International Data Group-owned newsletter, who says he's heard from sources at eVoice and AOL that the online giant has acquired eVoice. "This is another strong attempt by AOL to build a messaging platform." ...