Microsoft Corp. and AOL Time Warner Inc. today announced an agreement to collaborate on long-term digital media initiatives that will accelerate the adoption of digital content, and to settle the pending litigation between their companies. The two companies have also agreed to a new royalty-free, seven-year license of Microsoft's browsing technology and a variety of steps designed to ensure that their products work better with each other.
Under the digital media agreement, the companies will work together on a series of initiatives to support the more rapid deployment of digital media for consumers and support new business models for content owners through digital rights management technology. The companies aim to help develop a successful digital media environment that is secure from piracy, open to all companies across multiple industries, and offers consumers access to broad content in a compelling manner that is easy to use. As part of this agreement, the two companies have entered into a long-term, non-exclusive license agreement allowing AOL Time Warner to use Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series and future software for creating, distributing and playing back high-quality digital media.
The legal settlement resolves the private antitrust lawsuit filed against Microsoft in January, 2002 by AOL Time Warner's America Online, Inc. unit on behalf of its subsidiary, Netscape Communications. As part of the settlement, Microsoft will pay $750 million to AOL Time Warner.
In addition, as part of today's announced settlement, Microsoft has agreed to provide AOL Time Warner's AOL online service with a new distribution channel for its software to certain PC users worldwide. Also, the two companies will cooperate to ensure the best possible AOL member experience on current and future Microsoft operating systems, including commitments by Microsoft for technical cooperation and information disclosures.
News source: Microsoft Press Pass
Under the digital media agreement, the companies will work together on a series of initiatives to support the more rapid deployment of digital media for consumers and support new business models for content owners through digital rights management technology. The companies aim to help develop a successful digital media environment that is secure from piracy, open to all companies across multiple industries, and offers consumers access to broad content in a compelling manner that is easy to use. As part of this agreement, the two companies have entered into a long-term, non-exclusive license agreement allowing AOL Time Warner to use Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series and future software for creating, distributing and playing back high-quality digital media.
The legal settlement resolves the private antitrust lawsuit filed against Microsoft in January, 2002 by AOL Time Warner's America Online, Inc. unit on behalf of its subsidiary, Netscape Communications. As part of the settlement, Microsoft will pay $750 million to AOL Time Warner.
In addition, as part of today's announced settlement, Microsoft has agreed to provide AOL Time Warner's AOL online service with a new distribution channel for its software to certain PC users worldwide. Also, the two companies will cooperate to ensure the best possible AOL member experience on current and future Microsoft operating systems, including commitments by Microsoft for technical cooperation and information disclosures.
News source: Microsoft Press Pass
Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) is a collection of updates that fixes issues to the Windows 2000 operating system. Windows 2000 SP4 can be applied to Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 with the Server Appliance Kit.
Windows 2000 SP4 improves on this quality by addressing the following issues:
Microsoft announced its Trustworthy Computing Initiative in January 2002 to make Windows a secure and reliable platform for our customers. This initiative started with .NET and XP. Now, Windows 2000 is part of that initiative.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1010750.html
And certainly sounds to me like AOL has a 7 year non-exclusive license for FREE. That doesn't mean they are going to use it. Of course, they probably will since there's no cost to it, but did MS charge anyway? I suspect their music streams will switch over to and be exclusively AAC until MS works out elemts of DRM which aren't that great at handling streams (though they've been focusing on it for a long time).
It does seem that there is a contract to exclusively use IE, but even this may be non-binding and may in fact be non-exclusive.
i personally would not pay money for any lossy audio track, rather get the CD and make my own
lol, nah... This should be good for both companies.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1011379.html
Well, that would be a big plus to me. I'm not holding my breath though...no way.
Last edited by 2110 on 30 May 2003 - 02:54
1. Money: Nero will requiere big dollars, because they are the leaders, but a second or third company, who is already f*cked, 1 cent per copy
2. Market balance: If they choose a #1 company, they make it stronger, but chosing other company will balance the market, and they will be the king forever
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