"JCJ, a more important question is what all this does for shareholders, and whether a single company is in the Microsoft shareholders best interest."
That is an interesting question, but it is one that MSFT should be considering, not the DOJ or the Courts. In my opinion, MSFT realizes that its OS monopoly and Apps monopoly are worth much more together than apart. When wielded strategically, each monopoly strengthens the other. Together, these monopolies are a powerful weapon for monopolizing new markets, such as the server market, the streaming media market, the television market, and the handheld market.
Of course, leveraging a monopoly (or a pair of monopolies) to monopolize a new market (let alone a big mess of new markets) is illegal. MSFT has been found guilty of this, and regardless of what the Appeals Court rules, this will not change. Splitting the company down the Ops/Apps line is an elegant way to limit the leverage MSFT can get from wielding its monopolies. There may be other nice remedies that can effect the same result, and the DOJ (or even MSFT!) may present some of these during Appeal, but the bottom line is that MSFT is not going to be able to muscle its way into the server, television, handheld, and streaming media markets. |
