IP: Microsoft pressure on Intel?

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/biztech/articles/26microsoft.html


 A Short quote from the article. It is WORTHWHILE reading djf


U.S. Investigating Microsoft's Role in Intel Decisions
By STEVE LOHR and JOHN MARKOFF




"On Aug. 2, 1995, Grove met with Gates on Intel's corporate campus in Santa Clara, Calif., according to the Intel documents. 


The three-hour session in a windowless, second-floor conference room was attended by several executives from each company. It was mainly a confidential exchange of product plans and market strategies -- not only for Microsoft's operating systems and Intel's microprocessors but in areas like multimedia software and the Internet. 
There was a heated discussion of software, according to Intel documents, but it was software that had been developed by Intel rather than by Microsoft. Though its business is making microprocessor chips, Intel also works on software, just as Microsoft does research and development work on hardware. 


Intel's silicon microprocessors are typically called the electronic brains of personal computers, while Microsoft's operating system is referred to as the central nervous system. Just as the brain is part of the central nervous system, the line separating the fundamental hardware and software technology of computing is often blurred. Software instructions can be programmed into chips, and hardware functions can be emulated in software. 


"Silicon is simply frozen software," Intel's Grove once said. "