SJ Mercury: Microsoft's Ballmer won't consider possibility of break

Apr 28, 2000, 05:47 (12 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Dan Gillmor)

[ Thanks to George Mitchell for this link. ]

"No way, no how, because Ballmer and his colleagues, starting with the company's famous co-founder and chairman, Bill Gates, are the truest of believers in their fundamental rightness. They aren't even making contingency plans for a breakup, Ballmer insisted."

"With every fiber of his being, Steve Ballmer knows -- knows -- it would be a public disaster of unprecedented proportion if Microsoft was forced to split into pieces. And he's just flabbergasted that some of us don't grasp this."

"Along with the standard-issue defense of Microsoft's ethics and business practices, topics on which we have long agreed to disagree, Ballmer offered what he plainly believed was a compelling reason not to do anything so drastic as a breakup. Simply put, the technology users of the world need Microsoft, because it takes a company of this size, talent, direction, patience and deep pockets to solve some kinds of problems and invent some kinds of products."

Complete Story

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