Microsoft pays $750 million AOL tax

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft put its hand into its voleskin trousers yesterday and paid $750 million to CNN AOL Time Warner and gave it a free a seven year licence for its browser, Internet Exploder.

And Microsoft and AWOL said that they would work together on a whole heap of Interweb related technologies, including instant messaging.

Peace has therefore broken out.

AWOL has the rights to the Netscape browser, but the deal puts an end to bitter strife between it and Microsoft.

The implications of AWOL and Microsoft working together are more important because they can work together on digital music copyrights.

The $750 million is more like a sliver of timber for AOL rather than a raft, however. Subtract that from the $26 billion the firm reported at the end of its Q1, and it's still splashing around in the red.

Will AWOL use the Netscape browser any more? The answer is probably for a while, but not for long. µ