IBM Corp. will receive $775 millionUS cash and $75 millionUS in credit for software from Microsoft Corp. to settle claims that resulted from the US Government antitrust case against Microsoft in the 90's the companies announced Friday.

out of the Saturday newspaper ( the thing with words on paper )...so no link yet...here's the link...

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan...=apn_tech_down
IBM wins $850M settlement from Microsoft

Guess to Microsoft this is just a drop in the bucket...but it will open the door for other cases...it always does.

Eg

Interesting footnote...

Perhaps Microsoft's toughest competitive challenge today comes from the open-source Linux operating system, which has made steady gains especially in overseas markets. Some of Linux's biggest backing has come from IBM.