NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Wall Street investors stayed on the sidelines Wednesday, leaving little impact on Microsoft shares just prior to the news of the remedy levied against the software maker in the landmark antitrust case.
At the close of markets Wednesday, shares of Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) were at 70-1/2, up 7/8, just a half an hour before U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his decision at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Judge Jackson ruled that the Redmond, Wash-based software monopoly should be broken up into two separate entities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a filing Wednesday, in which former Microsoft executive and co-founder Paul Allen filed to sell two million shares of Microsoft common stock valued at more than $128 million.
Allen holds a 4.1 percent stake in the company as of May 23, making him one of its largest shareholders. The SEC document shows Allen made the filing June 1.
Allen's filing stated that Microsoft has 5.103 billion shares outstanding.
A spokeswoman for Allen did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but has said in the past that Allen routinely sold Microsoft stock to diversify his portfolio.
The SEC filing showed that Allen sold a total of 28.6 million shares between March 1 and May 30 for more than $2.5 billion. The biggest one-day sale during that time was on March 6, when Allen sold off 6.46 million shares for more than $594 million.
 Microsoft CEO Bill Gates canceled Wednesday's scheduled Washington meetings with the Business Software Alliance, which included several high tech CEOs, and flew back to Seattle late Tuesday when it appeared Jackson's ruling was imminent. According to an official from the Software Publisher's Association, Gates said he needed to return to company headquarters to "be with his employees."
In Washington, many technology CEOs declined to comment about the antitrust case, but John Warnock of Adobe told CNNfn that he believes that good laws already exist and that many just want to see the laws enforced.
Eric Schmidt of Novell said that it is too early to speculate about what the impact of a breakup would be on Microsoft and the technology.
On Wednesday night, Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates) told CNNfn that he believes a breakup is necessary.
"It's absolutely stifling what Microsoft does when they acquire a little company and bundle that technology into Windows and eliminate all further innovation outside of Microsoft, in that particular area," McNealy said.
"You've seen a huge decrease in the amount of browser innovation ever since Microsoft went out and bought Spyglass Technology and bundled it in for free into Windows. All of a sudden, people are saying 'why do we want to innovate on Microsoft, who has cornered the market,'" said McNealy. 
--from staff and wire reports
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