Does a breakup make sense essays

Does a breakup make sense essays Everyone knew that the government had mounted a strong case in U.S. vs. Microsoft. But nobody expect a complete rout. Yet, when U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Jackson released his finding of facts on Nov. 5, he handed state and federal prosecutors an unambiguous triumph. Declaring that Microsoft routinely used its monopoly power to crush competitors, he portrayed the software giant as nothing less than a social menace. Jackson ¡s fact-findings were so critical of the company that they ¡ve raised the stakes in this battle: Suddenly, the breakup of Microsoft is a real possibility.  ¡If you had asked me how likely a breakup of Microsoft was six months ago, I would have said 10%, ¡ says Robert E. Litan, an antitrust expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.  ¡Now I say it ¡s 50%. ¡ The last time the government broke up a major company was in1982, when it worked with a cooperative ATBreaking them up is not the right answer, ¡ says Benchmark Capital partner David Beirne, a key backer of Red Hat Software Inc., which makes a Linux, based operating system that competes with Windows. Microsoft president Steven A. Ballmer, in an interview with BUSINESS WEEK, also insisted that the company would be  ¡happy to resolve this as quickly as possible. But, he added,  ¡We aren ¡t going to compromise on the principle of the freedom to innovate. ¡ In other words, the Feds can ¡t tell Microsoft what to put in its products. The main argument for divestiture is that Microsoft has so much power, and is so innately aggressive, that nothing else will keep the company from unfairly preying on rivals. If the government tries to break Microsoft up, there are four structural remedies. Horizontal breakup : Breaking Microsoft into th ...