Should Microsoft Split Up?

In the mid-nineties, during the great anti-trust battle era, many felt that Microsoft would be best served by splitting up into multiple companies. The thinking was that by having different mobile, desktop, office, ect…divisions, they would be able to keep up with pace of innovation of companies, like Apple, who are large corporations but operate like a much-smaller company without the levels of bureaucracy stopping and stalling, creative and innovative ideas.

This same old story has been resurrected again, but this time at Microsoft’s investors conference. Because of slowly, but steadily declining Microsoft shares, investors have been prodding Microsoft for answers as to why this is the case and how they intend on fixing this problem. This investors conference is their forum to ask Microsoft higher-ups just those kinds of questions. Microsoft, whose shares are currently at 25.57, have been split multiple times (around 9 times) over the years and are steady, but when compared to companies like Google, investors become restless and openly disturbed. One unidentified investor even asked the question during the conference, “Is it time to consider breaking this company up?”
Their thinking is that a bunch of smaller companies can work quicker to innovate without the fiscal burden of the businesses which are doing not-so-well. Also, fewer levels of bureaucrats will allow divisions to move much quicker through testing and decision-making, essentially moving products to launch much, much quicker.
Both CEO Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, who was in attendance, gave their opinion that it wasn’t time to consider such a move and that their current system allows for many areas of the company to contribute resources to another, like we see in Windows Phone, which contains: Xbox, Office, Windows Live, Zune and Bing integration.
The investors, however, continue to be baffled by the great divide between Microsoft’s staggeringly great revenues and its slowly falling stock price. Until Microsoft can figure out how to change growing profits into greater returns on stocks, the same old question will inevitably be asked, “Should Microsoft Split Up?”