MICROSOFT ENDS ITS PARTNERSHIP WITH REALNETWORKS
Microsoft is selling its 10% stake in RealNetworks, and will compete against
that company in offering "streaming video," which allows people to receive
TV broadcasts over the Internet.  The company is denying that its decision
to end the alliance is revenge for the testimony provided last June by
RealNetworks chief executive Rob Glaser in the Microsoft antitrust case
being pursued by the U.S. Justice Department.  Glaser had said in a Senate
hearing that Microsoft had deliberately tried to "break" his multimedia
software by making it inoperable on the Windows operating systems.
Microsoft has said that Glaser's charge was false.  (San Jose Mercury News
19 Nov 98)

MICROSOFT JAVA SUPPORT AND ITS "OWN VERSION" OF JAVA
After reviewing a decision by a federal judge ruling that Microsoft had
violated its licensing contract with Sun by altering that company's Java
language to optimize it for Microsoft's Windows operating system (thus
making it incompatible with Sun's standard Java technology), Microsoft has
decided "absolutely" to continue support for Java.  A Microsoft attorney
said, "Though there are some restrictions on what we can do, Microsoft still
has the right to create its own version of Java."  (New York Times 19 Nov 98)

AOL AND NETSCAPE DISCUSSING AN ALLIANCE
America Online, which now uses Microsoft's Internet Explorer software to
enable its 14 million members to surf the World Wide Web, may switch its
allegiance in January to Netscape, and load Netscape's Navigator browser
along with in or instead of the Microsoft browser.  AOL is responding
aggressively to new moves by Microsoft's MSN online service to give AOL
direct competition in such online offerings as travel services.
(Bloomberg/AP/Atlanta Journal 19 Nov 98)