MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs gain despite Microsoft slump

Microsoft was weighing the Dow down at midday Monday, as other techs were driven upward on a spate of deals. The Nasdaq rose 33.13 to 4,996.16 and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 43.74 to 11,068.98

The Inter@ctive Week @NetIndex gained 14 to 694.13.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the most active stock on the Nasdaq, lost 5 1/16 to 106 5/8 after The Wall Street Journal reported it would allow computer makers to embed competitors' software in its Windows operating system. The move was an effort to settle federal antitrust charges against it. Speculation has it the software maker will have to compromise much more in order to reach an agreement.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), the second most actively traded stock, was up 1 7/8 to 81 1/4. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) was also up 3 15/16 to 143.

Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT), which promotes Windows rival Linux, fell 3 1/8 to 57 3/8 after it said fourth quarter loss was 4 cents a share, squeaking by First Call's expected loss of 5 cents a share.

The hottest of the day's deals sent shares of Spyglass (Nasdaq: SPYG) soaring in early trading. OpenTV Corp. (Nasdaq: OPTV), down 33 to 136, said it would pay $122.28 a share for the Web pioneer, nearly double its Friday closing price.

Unisys (NYSE: UIS) rose 18 percent, or 4 1/2 to 29 13/16 after the company refused comment on a report that Deutsche Telekom AG was seeking to buy it.

Provider of IP telephony services and other services deltathree.com (Nasdaq: DDDC) popped 3 1/2 to 21 1/2, after it said it would provide its communications services on all eMachines (Nasdaq: EEEE) PCs. eMachines was down 11/32 to 7 29/32.

Telecommunications service provider TALK.com (Nasdaq: TALK), up 2 11/16 to 17 1/4, said it would buy local phone service provider Access One Communications Inc. for about $208 million.

Rare Medium Group (Nasdaq: RRRR) raced ahead 9 1/4 to 59 1/4 after two brokerage firms said they had started research coverage of the stock.

NBC Internet (Nasdaq: NBCI) rose 3 5/16 to 47 15/16 after it named a new CEO Monday who will bring his e-commerce expertise to the company's network of entertainment, news and e-commerce sites.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 7/16 to 73 1/8, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) rose 8 _ to 202 3/4 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) rose 1 3/8 to 72 7/8.