> There were no layoffs, no reassignments to different groups, they just let everything float for pretty much the summer. It must have cost a fortune, and I highly doubt anything would go down like this ever again in today’s tech business world.

This has happened to me before at Microsoft. Eventually people were given the 90 day "find a new internal position or you'll be let go" but IIRC it was a good 2 months or so of doing nothing before that kicked in.

And yes, it was really surreal.