WASHINGTON-A federal judge last Wednesday ordered Microsoft Corp. to be split into two companies, calling the world’s largest computer software maker untrustworthy and a threat to other high-tech sectors.
The ruling, which Microsoft will appeal, comes just two weeks after Justice Department lawyers produced an e-mail and a memo from Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates that they said was proof of the firm’s desire to leverage its monopoly position to exploit wireless Internet and personal digital assistant markets and lock out competitors.
“There is credible evidence in the record to suggest that Microsoft, convinced of its innocence, continues to do business as it has in the past, and may yet do to other markets what it has already done in the PC operating system and browser markets,” said U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in the ruling.
