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Inprise jumps after Microsoft investment

Shares of Inprise Corp. (Nasdaq: INPR) rose 39 percent, or 1 19/32 to 5 19/32, on Tuesday after Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) paid $100 million to use Inprise technology and invested $25 million for a stake in the business software company.

The Scotts Valley, Calif. company, which changed its name from Borland International Inc., stands to benefit from Microsoft's attention. As the world's largest software maker, Microsoft has some clout and could boost that stature of the beleaguered Inprise. Also, Microsoft's purchase of Inprise's software licenses finally puts to bed a long-standing legal dispute between the two companies.

Inprise, which designs software to let computers communicate across different platforms, cut 20 percent of its workforce in January as part of a broader restructuring, which included forming a unit to focus on the Internet.

Shares of Inprise have gone nowhere from the same period last year, up a paltry one percent year-to-date.