Microsoft to pay AOL $750 million

Microsoft is paying $750 million to AOL Time Warner as part of a wide-ranging settlement of disputes between the two companies. As part of the deal, the two companies will drop pending litigation, including an antitrust complaint filed by AOL Time Warner’s Netscape Communications unit in January 2002 against Microsoft. AOL also agreed to a seven-year royalty-free license of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. So much for Netscape 8.0, according to industry analysts who predict that the Netscape browser — currently at version 7.02 — will now move from a neglected orphan of AOL Time Warner to a candidate for euthanasia