Since the advent of Windows 95 twenty two years ago, Intel and AMD have had a strong stranglehold on the consumer market for PCs, laptops, and servers with their processors. Things got even more severe when Apple switched from IBM’s PowerPC design to strictly Intel processors in 2006 for their Mac line of computers. Since then Intel and AMD have had almost one hundred percent control on those aforementioned markets and due to patents and other licensing issues, no one else is able to join, leaving consumers at the mercy of whatever price they want to charge. Surely there is something that can be done to get around this duopoly though.

Why is it just Intel and AMD? Intel created a new processor design in the 1978 called x86 in an attempt to break into the cpu market. In order to effectively do that Intel licensed out their design to several other cpu manufacturers. They would also contribute any updates to the design to the other manufacturers as well. Once they got the market share they wanted they stopped providing updates. Because of this manufacturers stopped working with x86, were bought by Intel, or went out of business. AMD however decided to continue using x86 and would simply reverse engineer any advancements made by Intel, while making their own advancements. This strategy however kept them in a long uphill battle behind Intel.

AMD’s work eventually paid off though when they created their revolutionary Athlon line in the early 2000s. The Athlon was the first x86 processor that was 64 bit. The update was named AMD64 but is often referred to as x86-64 which AMD immediately patented. Meanwhile, Intel was also working to create a 64 bit processor. Their update, dubbed “Itanium” was initially targeted at the server market but failed to meet sales expectations. Intel eventually decided to use the AMD64 update on their own processors while infringing on AMD’s patent. However it turned out AMD had also infringed on one of Intel’s earlier patents. The two ended up with a cross-licensing agreement that protected both of them from litigation from infringing on each other’s patents. A condition of this agreement was that if one of them were to ever merge or be bought by another company the agreement would be terminated. A side effect of the agreement being terminated means that the other corporation is not protected from litigation. 

Despite the original x86 patent expiring some years ago, another manufacturer stepping in would be difficult. This is due to the patents from design updates like AMD64 and processor manufacturing in general. Anyone looking to create their own x86 processor would have to spend ludicrous amounts of time and money on reverse engineering these updates, not to mention the cost research and development to make a processor.

As stated earlier, the duopoly didn’t begin until Windows 95 hit the scene. Before that there were many operating systems on the market including older versions of Windows and MS-DOS. Most operating systems were created by manufacturers to sell with their computer or processor. Due to their being so many different processor designs, there were many different operating systems since cross compatibility with an operating system on two different cpu designs was a very costly and difficult thing to do. Windows like many operating systems stuck to one cpu design, that being x86. When Windows 95 came and created a monopoly on the PC market for operating systems, x86 got a monopoly on the cpu market for home PCs and servers as a side-effect since Windows only ran on x86 processors and Microsoft had no reason to change that. 

There is however one market Intel and AMD cannot seem to break into, that being the mobile phone and tablet market. Mobile phones and tablets that don’t run Windows use a processor design called ARM. ARM was developed by Acorn, now known as ARM Holdings, to be an energy efficient processor for use in smaller devices. In the mobile market, power consumption and heat output are both very important since mobile devices rely almost entirely on batteries. X86 cpus may be in laptops but the smaller design of phones and tablets greatly hurts x86 in how much power it can draw and how much heat it can output, two things ARM cpus have an advantage in. Intel has tried to penetrate the market with their Intel Atom line but it proved to be unsuccessful in everything except for Windows tablets.

Another big distinction between ARM and x86 is that ARM Holdings, much like Intel in the 1980s, licenses out their design to other manufactures. The key difference here is that ARM Holdings themselves do not manufacture processors and anyone can buy a license; and many have such as Samsung, Motorola, Texas Instruments, Apple, Qualcomm, Amazon, Nvidia, etc. 

This is fine and all, but what about the markets that Intel and AMD do control? With the help of Google ARM processors have found their way into Chromebooks running on ChromeOS. However they haven’t gotten any further than that. Then there is the fact that ChromeOS also runs on x86 cpus and any application made for the operating system will work on both versions due to the way ChromeOS was built. Due to the nature of ChromeOS being a lightweight operating system that relies on a constant internet connection, if ARM cpus are to move forward they will need something more sophisticated than ChromeOS. 

Microsoft tried in the past to adopt ARM processors into their Surface line of tablets and their Windows phones. There was the issue though that Windows only ran on x86 cpus for so long and thus had a strong legacy of software tied to it. Because of this Microsoft decided to create an ARM version of Windows dubbed Windows RT for the Surface tablets, and Windows Phone 8 to coincide with their new Windows 8 operating system. A problem though was that Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT could not run applications commonly found on the regular version of Windows. Windows RT greatly suffered from being locked to the Windows store and an inability to run regular applications, greatly limiting its growth. As for Windows Phone 8, its problem was the fact that it arrived to the mobile market far too late, didn’t get much support by third parties, and it wasn’t anywhere near being a fully fledged operating system so it couldn’t rely on legacy software, much like Windows RT. So, unless Windows switches solely to ARM processors in an instant, or has enough parity between its ARM and x86 version it will be stuck where it is now. The issue isn’t that an ARM build of Windows can’t run the applications an everyday consumer will need. It is instead that these applications don’t exist for it.

With an ARM version of Windows seemingly at a dead end it looked like Microsoft was left with no other options. That is until Qualcomm teamed up with them in a new attempt to emulate the necessary parts of an x86 cpu Windows uses. What exactly is emulation? Emulation is replicating hardware through the use of software, for example playing a Playstation game on a computer. Creating an emulator however is very costly and can take years to make. Emulation also has the issue of requiring powerful hardware relative to what’s being emulated; it is also very difficult to achieve perfect emulation. 

With these things in mind it seems very risky for Microsoft to settle on emulation with Qualcomm, perhaps even foolish. However in an Intel post celebrating x86’s 39th anniversary, Intel made it very clear that it was not fond of emulation. They stated that they “do not welcome unlawful infringement of our patents, and we fully expect other companies to continue to respect Intel’s intellectual property rights” (Krewell). This heavily implies that Intel perceives Microsoft and Qualcomm creating an emulator as an actual threat. Despite Intel waving its patents around they don’t have much of a leg to stand on. Going back to the Playstation example, in 2000 it was decided in the court case Sony Computer Entertainment inc. v. Connectix Corp., a dispute over Connectix’s Virtual Game Station a Playstation emulator, that emulation was officially deemed legal. The court ruled that:

“...the Virtual Game Station is transformative, and does not merely supplant the PlayStation console, the Virtual Game Station is a legitimate competitor in the market for platforms on which Sony and Sony-licensed games can be played. For this reason, some economic loss by Sony as a result of this competition does not compel a finding of no fair use. Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly”(United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit).

Because of this court case a precedent was set that emulation was considered a form of reverse engineering and was thus legal as long as copyrighted code wasn’t used. Seeing as processors have no code in them, Intel can’t really do much of anything to Microsoft or Qualcomm. Even if they do attempt legal action against them, this court case will more than likely end quickly in Microsoft’s favor. What’s more, there already exist an emulator that supports x86, ARM, and other designs called QEMU, an open source emulator that is commonly used to test software for other processor designs when a developer can’t get their hands on the actual hardware they’re targeting. Intel has yet to target QEMU and Qualcomm has said that they will continue their plans with Microsoft.

So, how can one get around Intel and AMD’s duopoly? The question ultimately was never if it can happen, but instead how it can/will happen. There are many ways around it but there is a huge level of uncertainty on which is the most worthwhile or likely. ARM seems to be the way, but it could be an entirely new design as well. No one can say for sure, but what they can say is that x86 can’t and won’t last forever.
