CES: Intel exec: Microsoft's tablet OS too long in coming
LAS VEGAS—Intel has urged Microsoft to tailor Windows for smaller devices, to no avail, an executive from the chipmaker said at the Consumer Electronics Show. — “Hey, we tried to get [Microsoft] to do a tablet OS (operating system) for a long time.
Context & Ripple Effects
The friction between Intel and Microsoft over tablets has been building since October, when CNET's examination of the iPad's awkward fit in the Wintel world laid out how neither company had an answer to Apple's device. At CES 2011 that private tension went public: an Intel executive said on stage that the chipmaker had pressed Microsoft for years to tailor Windows into a tablet OS, and had gotten nowhere.
The complaint lands against the backdrop of Microsoft's own CES showing — Ballmer spent his keynote on Xbox-as-entertainment-hub, Avatar Kinect, and Windows Phone 7 coming to Verizon and Sprint, while Surface 2.0 debuted as a $7,600 tabletop rather than a slate. For Intel, whose silicon depends on Windows devices shipping in volume, Microsoft's silence on tablets is a revenue problem with a name attached.
First-order effects
- Intel's public airing of the grievance turns a partner dispute into open pressure, forcing Microsoft to defend its Windows-on-tablets roadmap at the industry's biggest stage.
- PC makers shopping for a 2011 tablet lineup leave CES without a Windows slate OS to build on, pushing them toward whatever alternative OS ships first.
Second-order effects
- Rival chipmakers courting tablet designs gain an opening: if Windows won't come to small devices on Intel's timetable, OEMs evaluating non-x86 silicon and non-Windows software have less reason to wait for either incumbent.
- Microsoft's CES emphasis on Kinect, Xbox, and Windows Phone reads as a hedge — if it cedes slates for another cycle, its device story rests on entertainment and phones rather than the tablet category Apple now defines.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the decades-old assumption that Intel chips and Windows ship together by default weakens: each side begins hedging with alternate partners, and the Wintel pairing becomes one option among several rather than the PC industry's fixed foundation.
The trend: The post-iPad device market is straining the Wintel alliance, as each partner hedges toward operating systems and silicon that don't depend on the other.