Microsoft Corp is trying to play down the NeXT Inc story as much as it can, and denies that it is considering investing in NeXT (the story did not say it was); it does confirm that it has has spoken with NeXT about sharing technology that would enable NeXT to develop products for the various Windows operating systems, but insists that it has such agreements with many other companies already. NeXT declined to respond directly to the report, but said that it is on track to have revenue of $45m to $50m this year, up from $11m last year, and expects to be profitable.Any deal between the companies is expected to be to help NeXT create a version of its OpenStep object-oriented develoment environment for use with Windows95 and with NT.
