“But then there was the question from a man who described
himself as “another frustrated shareholder for more years than I
care to admit.” After citing the share price and conceding
Microsoft’s core product strength, he asked, “Maybe we have the
model wrong. … Is it time to consider breaking this company
up?”“It was more than an idle question, given that Goldman Sachs
proposed essentially the same thing last month. Ballmer and Bill
Gates, who both fought to keep the company intact during the
company’s antitrust era, find themselves defending their integrated
model once again, but this time in front of the company’s
shareholders.”