You finish the proposal, attach the spreadsheet, and save the files in your public folder at MSWebsoft for others on your team. You notice the vast number of applications the site now hosts on its Linux servers, thanks to Microsoft Application's takeover of Corel and subsequent move to Canada. While this scenario is pure speculation, we're awash in speculation after District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson released his decision to break Microsoft into applications and operating system companies. Microsoft loses its appeal and breaks up according to Jackson's order with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in charge of one company, and Bill Gates the other. Big investors convince the company to drop the appeal and break in two rather than accept ongoing behavioral remedies.
Profits soar and both companies forge partnerships with former foes.
Microsoft settles the case by turning Windows over to the open source community and then focuses on Windows-based Web services, embedded systems, and hosted applications. George W. Bush is elected president. Under his administration, the Justice Department drops the suit, followed by the states. The case lingers in the courts for years, after an appeal to go straight to the Supreme Court is rejected. The telephone colossus split into eight companies, which have merged and split again to form even more companies, in ways unimaginable when the breakup decree was signed.