With Microsoft under close watch for anti-competitive practices, it now enjoys few of the advantages of linking products to Windows and all of the disadvantages (long ship times, complex interdependencies, political infighting, calcified decision making, and so on.)

Even without the legal concerns, the massive network that is Microsoft is arguably already s starting to collapse under its own weight. Yet blindly, almost out of force of habit, Microsoft continues to pursue integration strategies that are harmful to its health and long term survival.

The only cure at this point is radical organizational makeover. The idea of splitting Microsoft up for its own good into multiple independent companies isn’t new, but Adam Barr has a unique spin on how this might happen. He cleverly ties the breakup to the retirement of the Ballmer and Gates. It’s almost impossible to imaging Microsoft without Ballmer and Gates, so why not let the breakup happen then?

Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters: The Answer: “There has been some speculation about who will succeed Bill and Steve at Microsoft…

The problem is that it’s hard to imagine Microsoft without Bill and Steve, and it’s hard to imagine whoever succeeded them having enough respect from employees to impose their vision on the company.

So my solution to who will replace Bill and Steve is…nobody will replace Bill and Steve.

See, there’s another problem. Microsoft is becoming a huge company, and it’s not clear that any person, even Bill or Steve, can really keep it all in their heads, and use the size of the company to its advantage…

n recognition of the difficulty of coordinating among 60,000 employees, Microsoft has already divided the company into seven “P&Ls” (as in profit and loss) … Each of these have their own CFO and in ways function like independent companies, but they all report back to Bill and Steve.

So my idea is that when Bill and Steve retire, they do so together, and at that moment Microsoft is split into seven companies. Actually six companies, because client and server and tools are too intermingled to separate. Microsoft Research either sticks with one of the six, or else gets spun off into a separate company owned by the other six, everything cross-patented to the hilt. Shareholders in Microsoft get shares in all the companies, and then it’s up to the stock market to decide.

Some would suggest this should happen now, with Bill and Steve taking the client and server and tools part (producing a nice echo of proto-Microsoft, circa 1983). But hey, Bill and Steve have earned the right to stick around and kibbitz as long as they want. But once they’re gone…time for the Big Bang. “