Hamilton--Behind the Urge to Merge

You gotta love America. Only here could Bill Gates be watching almost idly as the Justice Department prepares to dismantle his empire just as changes in information technology were about to do it for him.

Ironically, while Microsoft is about to be broken up into two or three pieces, just about every other industry seems to be moving toward larger and larger conglomerates in search of so-called synergies. That the payoffs are few and far between doesn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasm—and certainly not that of the investment bankers and corporate lawyers that put these deals together.