So of course you know by now that the rumors were, in fact, correct. Early in the week, shadowy sources claiming to have "acquired" a final draft of the script for last Friday's "Redmond Justice" episode reported that, contrary to popular belief, the Justice Department would ask the court to split Microsoft up the middle. A few days later, anonymous fans who had managed to sneak onto the set during the shoot claimed that the script had undergone drastic last-minute rewrites, and that when the show would air, instead of filing their own separate proposal, the nineteen states still in the case (formerly opposed to any sort of breakup) would unilaterally back the DoJ's plan.

Well, as first reported by faithful viewer Jonathan Signor, when the show hit the airwaves last Friday, those rumors turned out to be dead-on accurate. (Don't you wish the world of Apple rumors had that kind of percentage? Can we get those sources into Cupertino?) If you missed the episode, the Washington Post has an excellent write-up that captures most of the action-- heck, they've even got a full seventeen-page transcript if that's the kind of thing that floats your boat. Basically, the plan calls for Microsoft to be split into two Baby Bills (or Babysofts, or Microchunks, or whatever you want to call them). One would handle nothing but operating systems, which ought to keep it plenty busy; Microsoft's currently got Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows CE (uh, we mean "Pocket PC") on the shelves, with Windows ME on deck. The other company would crank out applications, like Office and Internet Explorer, and would also encompass services like MSN. Sounds like the show's producers are gearing up for a bevy of entertaining "Redmond Justice" spinoffs...

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is expressing outrage and dismay. For a break from the gritty courtroom drama, take a quick gander at Microsoft's official response to the government's breakup recommendation-- a little comic relief will help take the edge off. Bill's PR flunkies refer to the plan as an "unprecedented regulatory scheme" (we'd comment, but we're too busy choosing a long-distance phone service), and Bill himself chimes in with this little gem: "Microsoft never could have created Windows and Office in they were in separate companies." Evidently since the corporation lost its court case, it no longer sees any need to keep claiming that Microsoft held no advantage in writing office productivity software by having sole access to the operating system's guts. And of course there's the predictable yet comfortable bleating of the "I" word: "Dismantling Microsoft would hurt the company's ability to continue to innovate, and that would hurt consumers." At the risk of losing this show's G rating, all we can say is, hurt me, baby-- hurt me good.