phil osborn wrote:
> >From: "zeb haradon" <zebharadon@hotmail.com>
> >Subject: what if microsoft disobeyed the breakup?
> >Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 19:14:13 GMT
> >
> >I'm curious what would happen if MicroSoft simply announced that they have
> >no intentions of breaking up the company, and intend to just go on with
> >business as usual, disregarding government orders, and that they would no
> >longer bother to even show up at the trial. Whoever made the decision could
> >be arrested, and if this included enough people, MS could cease to
> >function.
> >What would be the effect on the economy, and would the government be smart
> >enough to know this effect and not arrest them?
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------
> >Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
>
> What if they announced that if the state attempted to break them up, then
> they were sorry, but they couldn't then be bothered to fix the bug in their
> OS that would destroy the data on every system using it in the near future?
They're arrogant enough that such is not beyond all possibility. Of
course, you can bet that several non-MS people would find a way to fix
that bug, given as their jobs (and $millions) would depend on it. MS
would probably try to sue, but it would be thrown out of court after yet
another "spontaneous" gathering of "save our heros" legal defenses.
As suggested, I think it might be amusing if MS decided to dissolve
rather than allow itself to be broken up - or, maybe, it would just sell
all of its IP rights and other property to Bill Gates for $0.01 then
dissolve, and Gates would found another company that just happened to
work much like Microsoft.
...
I hope Gates & co. don't read this list. That might actually work.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:11:56 MDT