Microsoft is perhaps the most business-savvy major tech company around. I for one am glad that we didn't have this kind of disaster back then -- Microsoft has a

Microsoft is perhaps the most business-savvy major tech company around. I for one am glad that we didn't have this kind of disaster back then -- Microsoft has always recognized and capitalized on its bread and butter: Windows and Office. These two are the workhorses, the crown jewels in the Microsoft empire, and almost everything else that Microsoft does is centered on strengthening the positions of these two cash cows. Splitting these into a separate entity would have been utterly ridiculous. Again, Windows and Office are and always have been the lifeblood of Microsoft. You really think they should have decided to let someone else make all of that money in 1998 and retooled their whole business to keep only Hotmail? I think that would have been disastrous for MS.