Vol 16, Issue 4

January 28, 2002

Intel and Microsoft: Together Forever?

By Peter N. Glaskowsky

How many times has Microsoft tried to help create a non-Intel computing platform? At least five that I can think of. Over the years, Intel has invested millions of dollars into supporting non-Microsoft operating systems. None of these efforts has ever seemed to matter. Despite all their efforts to escape the "Wintel" moniker, the two companies seem fated to remain bound together for eternity.

Microsoft and Intel have been together since the dawn of the microprocessor. Intel's 8080 was one of the first widely used microcomputer CPUs, and Microsoft's BASIC was one of the first popular high-level languages for microcomputers. In its early days, however, Microsoft had no special relationship with Intel. For example, Microsoft worked with Apple and Radio Shack, which used non-Intel CPUs.

It was Microsoft's historic 1981 action that tied Microsoft and Intel together. Microsoft agreed to provide MS-DOS for the IBM PC, and, over the next several years, Microsoft established parallel deals with PC-clone makers such as Compaq. The IBM deal gave Microsoft control over two-thirds of the critical software running on the PC—the operating system and development software.

Through the 1980s, Microsoft built up the third leg of this strategic triad: application software. At the same time, however, Microsoft was also involved in deals to create alternatives to the PC. The first of these was the MSX system, a home computer codeveloped in 1983 by Microsoft, the Japanese company ASCII, and major Japanese consumer-electronics companies that included Matsushita and Sony. The Z-80-based MSX machines were much less expensive than PCs, had comparable software, and were much more popular in some parts of the world—but not in the United States.

Microsoft provided a version of BASIC compatible with the PC's GW-BASIC; an 8-bit version of MS-DOS called, predictably, MSX-DOS; and limited application software. MSX machines were used primarily as game consoles, but Microsoft was not yet a major player in game software. Although the MSX platform evolved through the 1980s, it could not evolve sufficiently to keep pace with the PC, which eventually became the world standard for home and personal computing. Simultaneously, despite stiff competition, Intel processors became the standard choice of PC vendors.

In 1985, just two years after the debut of MSX, Microsoft's Bill Gates flirted briefly with the notion of throwing Microsoft's considerable weight behind the Macintosh platform. Gates recognized that the Mac's sophisticated combination of hardware and software was technically superior to that of the IBM PC architecture, but his efforts to get Apple to open up the Mac to outside hardware and software developers were rebuffed.

In the early 1990s, Microsoft resolved to try even harder to break Intel's grip on the personal-computer industry. Microsoft hired David Cutler, an architect of Digital Equipment Corporation's VMS operating system, to create what would become Windows NT. Microsoft decided to make NT platform neutral: that is, it would not be tied to the x86 architecture. All early NT development, in fact, took place on MIPS-based workstations. By writing and testing all the NT code on MIPS processors, Cutler's team could be sure that no undesirable x86-specific code existed in NT.

It was Microsoft's plan to support NT on multiple processors and let the market decide which implementations would succeed. Most of the senior NT team members believed that MIPS and Alpha would dominate their most important target markets: servers and workstations. Indeed, when NT finally shipped, the fastest and most capable NT machines had inside them RISC processors—not Intel. These systems came with very high prices, mandated by their high development costs and low sales volumes, and the NT market quickly moved to standardize on x86 once more.

Ironically, while Intel insisted throughout the early days of NT that there was no need to leave x86 behind, internally, it knew better. Just as x86 was winning the battle for NT, Intel announced it would develop its own non-x86 processor for servers and workstations. The new Itanium architecture is years behind schedule now, and its ultimate fate is uncertain, but Intel has already been more successful in offering an alternative to x86 than have all the RISC NT vendors put together. This success has simply cemented Microsoft's dependence on Intel at the high end of the market.

Perhaps inspired by NT's promise of processor independence, Microsoft embarked in the mid-1990s on another effort to create a CPU-neutral operating system. This effort led to Windows CE and several generations of handheld and pocket-size systems. CE machines have been built around ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SuperH, and even x86 processors. Unlike NT, CE succeeded in breaking loose from x86.

CE, however, did not lead to the diversity of solutions Microsoft sought. The latest generation of Pocket PC systems is based solely on one processor architecture, StrongARM, originally developed by Digital. In the greatest irony of all, StrongARM is now an Intel product.

Microsoft's most recent attempt to foster non-Intel processors never really had a chance. The Xbox video-game console shipped with an Intel processor, but for most of the early days of the project, AMD was tipped to be the front-runner. If Xbox had come along five or six years earlier, it might even have used a RISC processor. Instead, Xbox is just another Intel x86 machine.

Today, despite years of effort, Microsoft's strategic planning remains Intel focused. The vast majority of Microsoft software is run on Intel processors. AMD makes good CPUs, but AMD has no meaningful influence on Microsoft's strategies. Microsoft makes good money on Macintosh application software, but these products simply parallel the company's own Windows products.

Will Microsoft keep looking for Intel alternatives? Almost certainly, but it's likely to be a few years before the next such effort emerges. In the meantime, we'll have four Wintel platforms—Windows XP on x86, Windows XP on Itanium, Pocket PC, and Xbox—to choose from, not just one.