Microsoft Buys Into Inprise, Settles Disputes

June 08, 1999 (6:30 AM EDT)

Microsoft Buys Into Inprise, Settles Disputes

By Madeleine Acey,

Microsoft has bought a $25 million stake in Inprise, formerly Borland, and entered into a $100 million alliance with the former rival.

The pair announced Tuesday a set of technology and licensing agreements that, they said, would settle their long-standing patent disputes and form the foundation of a long-term alliance between the two companies.

Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Inprise agreed to support Windows 2000, COM+, and the Windows Distributed interNet Applications (Windows DNA) architecture. In turn, Microsoft made a long-term commitment to provide Inprise with technologies related to the Windows platform and Internet technologies. Microsoft also paid Inprise $100 million for the rights to use Inprise-patented technology in Microsoft products and to settle the pair's patent and technology disputes.

Inprise would license the latest version of the Microsoft Foundation Classes, the standard C++ class library for developing applications for Windows. It said MFC would ship with Borland C++Builder.

It would also license the latest version of the Windows platform SDK. Elements of the Windows platform SDK would be incorporated into Inprise's Borlandfamily of Windows-based development tools, the companies said.

"This provides a great basis for expanding Inprise's support for the Windows platforms and newer Microsoft technologies in the Internet and elsewhere," said Dale Fuller, Inprise's interim president and CEO.

"Windows customers will benefit from Inprise's additional support of Microsoft technologies," said Paul Maritz, vice president of the developer group at Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash.

The agreements surprised analysts and industry observers. "It doesn't seem like Inprise needed Microsoft technology or that Microsoft needed Inprise," said Steve Robins, senior analyst at Yankee Group, a Boston-based consulting company. "I think there's more going on under the covers than is obvious. That's a lot of money to pay for something like that. It's probably a face saving way of getting out of it [the patent dispute]."

However, he said Inprise had COM/CORBA bridging technology Microsoft might be interested in. "I think they've seen Windows is an important lynchpin, but not universal." He also said Microsoft might be trying to prevent Inprise technology going to rivals. "It's probably defensive against Sun, [to make sure] they don't get this technology," he said.