Aol Licenses Microsoft System

Tue., Nov. 23, 1999

America Online Inc., never Microsoft Corp.’s best pal, has licensed Microsoft’s technology for running multimedia games, the companies said Monday.

AOL will be able to distribute Microsoft’s DirectX 7.0 software components, giving its customers the ability to run the latest games and multimedia applications on personal computers using Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

DirectX is a set of components that fits into the Windows operating system to improve graphics, sound and the speed of multimedia software, especially games.

Most PC software developers use DirectX because of the widespread use of Windows and because it saves them time and money since they don’t have to create similar components themselves.

Under the nonexclusive distribution license, AOL members will be able to download DirectX 7.0 to their home computers. The latest version of DirectX was released in September.

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Aol Licenses Microsoft System

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