While On2 Technologies (AMEX: ONT) has strong video compression solutions, the company failed to get much traction over the years (a key reason was the licensing fee structure). It's been especially painful for shareholders.

But today there was some good news: Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) agreed to purchase the company for $106.5 million in stock. On the news of the deal, On2's shares spiked 49% to $0.57.

RealNetworks Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) traded for $12 in December. On a good day, the stock now changes hands at $8.

Real is one of the internet stock survivors of the 2000 crash. For one day in 2000, it hit $96. At that time, though, it was in a different business. The company was the only true competition for Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Media Player. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has a competing product called QuickTime, but the battle for the multimedia PC player was between Real and MSFT.

As Real started to lose ground, it did two things. First, it used its player platform to build a music and game download business. Then, it sued Microsoft for antitrust violations for trying to push its player out of the market.

Real won the suit and collected $761 million. That left the company with almost $700 million in cash against a market cap of less than $1.3 billion.

The last thing Apple needed to admit now that it's starting airing the new "Get a Mac" ad campaign was security flaws with its operating system. My favorite ad is "Viruses," which talks about the 114,000 viruses a PC can catch, but Macs are immune. The ad ends with PC crashing. 

It's a great ad, but Apple's release of free software updates that fix more than 40 separate security flaws with its Mac OS X operating system and other software undermines its case. 

There were also about a dozen problems fixed with Quicktime in its new release.  You can get the new version of Quicktime (version 7.1) by downloading it at Apple's site.

You can get more information about the security problems and download patches to fix the more than 30 security problems with OS X here.  Applications that need a fix include the Safari web browser, the default email program, the password-storing Keychain application, and Apple's Macromedia Flash player. QuickDraw also needs a fix.

While it's good news for Apple that it's popularity is growing.  The dark side of this news is that OS X will only become even more of a target for those who get their kicks developing viruses and Trojans.