Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[sandeeps]

Zeev, what do you make of the split announcement from MSFT along with ratcheting down of the rev/eps numbers? It doesn't jive. If I were a fully cynical man, I would think that this split is designed to do a couple of things -
1) make "leaving msft" a difficult decision for its top employees. The idea of leaving n options on the table is more difficult than leaving n/2 options. I know that in reality there is little difference, but tell that to emotional folks.
2) project confidence.

However, with reduced guidance, it totally kills both of these ideas. Given the history of msft management, it just doesn't make sense that they would do something which can be interpreted only negatively. What do you think? Is there any logical explanation of this split?