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Saturday, July 17, 1999 

        Microsoft's Value Tops $500 Billion 
        By GEORGE TIBBITS, AP Business Writer
         
               SEATTLE--Investors continued their love affair with
               Microsoft Corp., making the software giant the first
            company to be worth more than half a trillion dollars as
            its stock price surged on a positive jury verdict and a
            rumor. 
                 Microsoft's stock was up $5.06 1/4 to close at $99.43
            3/4 a share Friday in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
            With more than 5.1 billion shares outstanding, Microsoft
            was worth about $507 billion. 
                 The No. 2 company, General Electric, was worth about
            $384 billion. 
                 At current stock prices, company chairman Bill Gates
            would be worth more than $100 billion, based on the
            more than 1 billion Microsoft shares he was listed as
            owning in a Feb. 11 proxy statement. Microsoft
            co-founder Paul Allen, with more than 276 million
            shares, is worth more than $27 billion. 
                 Microsoft received one boost Friday when a federal
            court jury in Connecticut ruled it had not violated federal
            antitrust laws in its dealings with Bristol Technology Inc.,
            a small software company. 
                 In a separate development, The Wall Street Journal
            reported Microsoft, which will report its annual earnings
            Monday, is moving closer to creating a tracking stock for
            its Internet businesses to take advantage of the stock
            market's infatuation with the Internet. 
                 A tracking stock is designed to give investors the
            opportunity to focus on just one aspect of the company's
            business without creating a separate publicly traded
            company. 
                 A Microsoft spokeswoman declined comment on the
            Journal report. 
                 Microsoft's MSN.com is one of the most-visited sites
            on the Web, and includes such services as Hotmail
            e-mail, the Expedia travel site and the CarPoint auto
            buying service. 
                 Although critics assail Microsoft's take-no-prisoners
            competitiveness, investors have favored a company with
            large profit margins, rapidly growing sales and no debt. 
                 Microsoft's phenomenal rise has created countless
            millionaires and made founders Gates and Allen two of
            the richest men on Earth. 

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