...back in 2000, during the enormous US DOJ antitrust which seriously threatened to break up MSFT [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp

...back in 2000, during the enormous US DOJ antitrust which seriously threatened to break up MSFT [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....] [https://observer.com/2000/06/the-vancouver-solution-what-if-microsoft-tried-to-flee/ https://observer.com/2000/06/the-vancouver-solution-what-if-...] Calling that "something political that I don't recall anymore" is downplaying it. It was very real. It wasn't partisan either: Sen Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was very pro-Utah companies like Novell and WordPerfect. And there was a 1995 antitrust involving RealNetworks before Microsoft-Netscape; Sen Maria Cantwell (D-WA) was a former VP at RealNetworks. Some commentators have said MSFT deliberately tactically kept its HQ just south of the Canadian border, for leveraging ongoing negotiations on taxes, IP, visa laws and quotas, etc.