Although IBM may have committed the original sin that allowed
Microsoft to dominate the desktop, it couldn't have stayed on top
for so long without Intel. Windows is so tied to Intel's CPU that
the industry came up with "Wintel" to describe the symbiotic
pairing. But now, Intel is becoming a player in Microsoft's
undoing.
As the PC market has changed over the past quarter-century, Intel
has delivered CPUs that can run Windows for that market in the way
in which it is accustomed. There have been some close calls, for
sure; Intel was slow to react when low-end PCs became popular and
AMD swooped in to grab that territory. But Intel is as cutthroat as
they come, twisting arms in questionably legal ways to win back
customers.
The move towards mobile computing has been a tougher challenge.
Although Intel makes their low-power Atom chips for portables and
netbooks, the tablet and cell phone market is dominated by ARM. The
challenges of taking a complex desktop/server architecture like x86
and shoehorning it into a low-power CPU at a competitive price may
just be too great, judging by the reaction of mobile hardware
makers. And unlike the desktop situation, hardware makers aren't
forced to use x86 because it's all that Windows can run.
That freedom to pick something other than Intel must feel great for
tablet makers, but it has to terrify Microsoft. Only x86 can
support the real desktop Windows operating system. If Wintel has no
hope of making it to an ultra-mobile platform, Microsoft loses all
the influence that its installed base carries. Windows Phone may
share the same word, but it's not the same platform and doesn't
have the same sway. As more mobile hardware runs Android or iOS,
the Wintel duopoly begins to melt away.