The US Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Microsoft Corp has had an air of unreality about it, with few people imagining that it will come to anything very much or lead to any significant change in the market, but now that the thing may be coming to a climax, what are the possible outcomes? If Microsoft is found to have a case to answer, the minimum possibility is that the company is forced to sign a consent decree under which it has to unbundle, and agree not to bundle in future – for instance it might have to dismantle Windows for Workgroups and sell the networking elements as a separate product (similar networking code will be an integral part of standard Windows NT); at worst, the company could be forced to split itself into two completely different companies, one for operating systems and languages, the other for applications.
