Frederick -
1) - unlikely IMO and not something MSFT is planning for. They have modified their organizational structure a lot in the last 6 months, but the changes seem designed to foster entrepreneurial attitudes, provide a center of gravity for .NET, and re-focus on software as a service, rather than to allow for a split of the OS versus applications businesses. There seems to be less and less support for the idea that breaking up MSFT would be good for anyone but thier competitors, and I see no justification in the original trial record for such a remedy.
2) MSFT is aggressively expanding a second area near their current campus. The idea that they would create any significant presence in Utah works against everything I know about the company, culture and direction. Despite buying several companies headquartered in the bay area, and the big talent pool available there, MSFT has consistently moved operations and development for those companies back to Redmond. I think there is zero chance of rumor 2 being accurate.
3 and 4) If there was a split, I would expect Jim Allchin to head the OS company. Gates has not been much involved in OS thinking for a while, his head seems completely into the "new order" stuff, which is mostly applications and middleware. I would expect both Gates and Ballmer (and pretty much most of the senior team except Allchin) to stay with the apps business if there was a split. There are a number of very strong managers under Allchin who could easily step up to a wider role in a separate company.
5) MSFT does not want to be split up on any terms and that is not just rhetoric. The .NET initiative makes the future of a monolithic OS or apps company a lot less important to the future of Microsoft, but that just speaks to how silly the DOJ's remedies are - they apply to a set of market conditions and a competitive landscape which seem like the distant past already, and will be even more distant by the time any remedies are decided. Also, the impact and effects the DOJ predicted for the market have also not come to pass. The DOJ's crystal ball was not working very well - go back and read some of the trial statements if you want a good laugh. That's assuming you believe the original DOJ action was a good faith attempt to correct some perceived injustice. I happen to think it was a use of government office by Klien, and Bois by proxy, to get into the limelight and lock in fat fees for years to come, with no particular concern for the issues at stake. Not a lot different from most basically political people.
Finally, as far as MSFT valuation, the best thing would be for the appeals court to come to a rapid conclusion on the facts, propose some reasonable remedy to any actual violations which survive the appeal, and move on. MSFT may benefit from restructuring, as I think it already has in the case of recent moves in support of .NET, but any perception that hints at MSFT changing to meet the government's needs (as opposed to the market's needs) would be negative. |
