Microsoft executives viewed RealNetworks' streaming software with the same apprehension with which they viewed Apple's playback software ? as competitive technology that could develop into part of a middleware layer that could, in turn, become broad and widespread enough to weaken the applications barrier to entry. 112.  At the end of May 1997, Gates told a group of Microsoft executives that multimedia streaming represented strategic ground that Microsoft needed to capture. He identified RealNetworks as the adversary and authorized the payment of up to $65 million for a streaming software company in order to accelerate Microsoft's effort to seize control of streaming standards. Two weeks later, Microsoft signed a letter of intent for the acquisition of a streaming media company called VXtreme. 113.  Perhaps sensing an impending crisis, executives at RealNetworks contacted Microsoft within days of the VXtreme deal's announcement and proposed that the two companies enter a strategic relationship. The CEO of RealNetworks told a senior vice president at Microsoft that if RealNetworks were presented with a profitable opportunity to move to value- added software, the company would be amenable to abandoning the base streaming business. On July 10, a Microsoft executive, Robert Muglia, told a RealNetworks executive that it would indeed be in the interests of both companies if RealNetworks limited itself to developing value- added software designed to run on top of Microsoft's fundamental multimedia platform. Consequently, on July 18, Microsoft and RealNetworks entered into an agreement whereby Microsoft agreed to distribute a copy of RealNetworks' media