MICROSOFT OPENS UP

Microsoft will make its Microsoft Network, until now open only to subscribers, available to anyone over the Internet. "This is a great move for Microsoft," says TIME's Joshua Quittner. "By far the most popular browser is Netscape; what Microsoft wants is for people to use its competing Explorer browser. Not very many people are on the Microsoft Network right now, and they want as many people as possible to see and use their products. What Microsoft hopes will happen is that people will go to their site and see all the cool things that you can do with their Explorer browser that you can't do in Netscape." Microsoft announced that it would license Sun Microsystems' Java software, hedging its bet that its competing publishing software won't gain wide acceptance on the Internet. Quittner says that both decisions signal Microsoft's acceptance of the Internet's trend toward an open exchange of information. "Everybody is moving toward opening up their sites and away from these sort of walled-off communities. It doesn't really make sense to wall things off unless your content is so extremely good that people will pay extra to get into it."