This really should not come as a shock. The break up of Standard Oil at the beginning of the century made Rockefeller much wealthier. The same was true for folks that were smart enough to hold onto ATT stock in 1984. The sum of the individual parts in cases like this is almost always greater than the aggregate.

As far as breaking up the company into 2 separate companies and the impact? Nothing. Was there real impact with ATT? No.. Was there real impact with Standard Oil? No.. MS is already setup for this contingency.

If a separate OS and applications company result, there will not be a negative impact. Why? For starters, the companies will be symbients, eaching needing the other for survival. You can bet there will be an open flow of information. Of course, the flow of information has to be the same for all companies. In other words, collusion cannot exist. And with this in mind, who wins. The consumer wins and the shareholders of the respective companies win.

Does this mean I am behind the DOJ's case? The answer is, I don't know. I really have not followed the nitty gritty details of the case. That said, I really don't have a basis to conclude one way or the other. In other words, the headlines in the newspaper and the lead stories on the nightly news do not contain the info required to make an informed decision. Of course, this still does not stop folks from taking the party line and rally to MS's defense. From some of the details I have seen, MS appears guilty to me.

I will tell you this, the government was very well prepared. How prepared. Lawrence Lessig, the country's most influencial and knowledgeable professor on cyberspace/technology law was Thomas Pennfield Jackson's advisor. Prof. Lessig was at Harvard. Stanford Law just lured him away. Quite a coup...

Regardless of what happens, MS, the shareholders, and the consumers will do just fine...

>Columnist Bob Lewis (www.infoworld.com) noted that by breaking up MS into multiple companies, a problem might be that the total stock valuation of multiple Microsofts might be greater than the valuation of the current, single MS. Bill Gates and other owners of MS shares might become even wealthier!
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>What else could be done to conclude this case?