IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp have reached agreement on how much IBM will pay Microsoft for the Windows code included in OS/2 2.0, according to the Redmond, Washington micro software company’s executive vice-president Steve Ballmer: he declined to give details but told the Wall Street Journal that an announcement would be made shortly; IBM had been baulking at paying close to the $35 that it pays Microsoft for a full retail copy of Windows, and wanted to pay much less – apparently a compromise figure has been reached; the agreement means that IBM will be able to continue to make OS/2 compatible with future releases of Windows, but Ballmer told Reuter that the agreement did not give IBM early access to Windows NT, and explained the dispute by saying rather than have it blow up and get messy, we sat down and worked through our differences and came to a mutual agreement – we had agreements, but we didn’t share a clear, common view about what they said; now we have a clear common view, he said.
