There's nothing like a big challenge to bring a couple closer together.
Such is the case with Intel and Microsoft, which announced on Tuesday they are jointly backing university research to help address the challenges posed by a shift to processors with many brains.
The companies are committing a combined $20 million to fund parallel computing research centers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
For years, the PC processor just got faster and faster, performance gains that software could easily take advantage of. In recent years, though, chip speed gains have flattened out, while Intel and others have been pushing multiple processing cores on a single chip.
More cores can also add up to better performance, but to fully utilize multiple brains, software needs to be rewritten in ways that allow tasks to be split up and handled in parallel, a significant technical hurdle.
"The software has to also start following Moore's Law," Intel fellow Shekhar Borkar said at a May gathering with reporters.
Both Intel and Microsoft have been working on this issue for some time.
In January, Microsoft announced it was setting up a joint research facility in Spain in conjunction with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie told CNET News.com in May that the shift of the PC from a single processor to one with many processing engines is "probably the single most disruptive thing that we will have done in the last 20 or 30 years."
Tony Hey, Microsoft's vice president of external research, echoed that on a conference call Tuesday, saying the shift in chip architecture will "profoundly impact" the way software is written.
"We're really in the midst of a revolution in the software industry," he said.
Microsoft's decision to allow Home versions of Vista to run inside virtual machines may have far-reaching benefits in the coming years.
The initial market for such virtual Vista machines is likely to be among Mac users looking to run Windows or within the ranks of hard-core PC enthusiasts. But the move could also benefit the average PC user who just wants a machine that's easier to use, says Woody Hobbs, CEO of Phoenix Technologies, a leading maker of the BIOS (basic input/output system) software that loads before a PC boots up.
Woody Hobbs, CEO, Phoenix Technologies
(Credit: Phoenix Technologies)Phoenix has been working on HyperSpace, a technology that allows for a range of software from embedded Web browsers to media players to security programs, to run outside the main operating system. The company has been working to bring HyperSpace to market this year, but because the technology relies on virtualizing some components of the PC, Hobbs said, it was hampered by Microsoft's licensing rules, which limited Vista virtualization to the two priciest versions of the operating system. Virtualization allows a computer to run a single version of an operating system but seem to be running multiple copies.
"We'd like to think they are accommodating us but, nevertheless, we are happy with the change," Hobbs said in a telephone interview on Monday.
Hobbs said Microsoft could benefit too, given the fact that he feels Windows has been losing share to the Mac because consumers believe Apple's machines are simpler to run and manage.
Microsoft's change on the licensing front, Hobbs said, opens the door for significant changes to the PC landscape, such as having security software that can run before and after Windows runs, as well as a machine that can boot instantly for simple tasks such as DVD playback, while simultaneously running Windows. Some machines have a "fast boot" Linux option today, but the machine has to restart to boot into Windows, meaning that users can't easily switch back to the DVD and keep their place in the movie.
"It really makes it a much more intuitive usage model and starts to make the PC a little more friendly, a la the Mac," he said.
Phoenix announced the HyperSpace technology in November, but expects it will take until at least the back-to-school season before the first machines hit U.S. shelves, and probably the holidays before machines start to make sophisticated use of the non-Windows space for things such as Web browsing or e-mail.
The licensing change for Vista has been a long time coming. Microsoft was criticized before Vista's launch for its limitations, which allowed only the Ultimate and Business editions to run as guest operating systems within a virtual machine. In June, Microsoft briefed reporters that it would ease the restrictions, but pulled back at the last minute for unspecified reasons.
Parallels, which makes software that lets Windows run on a Mac and is among those that stands to gain most immediately from the decision, praised the move.
"We're glad to see that Microsoft is taking steps to increase the pace of the adoption of virtualization," Parallels' Benjamin Rudolph said in an e-mail interview. "This shows that Microsoft is committed to the virtualization market, and we think that this opens new opportunities for us to partner."
Rudolph, too, suggested that the change might help boost Windows' fortunes among those otherwise inclined.
"This move is a good thing for those computer users who aren't Microsoft customers (like Mac and Linux users) since they now have a cost-effective way to access Windows and its massive software library," he said, noting that Microsoft now has a shot at the 6 percent of desktops not running its operating system today. "This is a great way for Microsoft to effectively reach 100 percent of the desktop market."
Most people expect some flip-flopping in an election year, but not usually from their software vendor.
Nonetheless, Microsoft on Monday changed its mind again, saying it will allow users to run Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium as guest operating systems on a virtual machine. The news is especially welcome for Mac users who want to run the latest Windows version without having to pay an arm and a leg. Until now, Mac users and others wanting to run Vista virtually have had to fork over for the most expensive Business and Ultimate versions.
Microsoft had briefed reporters in June that it was going to expand Vista's virtualization options, but then for reasons that were never made clear, it reversed itself and never announced such a move.
The reasoning behind the limitation never made that much sense to me. Microsoft's argument was that running Vista in a virtual machine represented some security risks. The company said it was not the case that the Ultimate or Business versions had less of a security risk than the Home editions, but rather that by limiting virtualization to the pricier versions, ideally only more technically sophisticated people would make the move.
In any case, Monday's move will certainly be welcomed by enthusiasts, Mac users, and virtualization software vendors such as Parallels.
Microsoft group product manager Patrick O'Rourke said in a telephone interview Monday: "Now is the right time, we believe, to make it easier for technical enthusiasts...to experience and see if virtualization is right for them."
As for the flip-flop in June, O'Rourke wouldn't go into the specific thinking behind either the planned move or its reversal. "There was some internal discussion still occurring at the time," he said.
The Vista change was just one of several announcements made by Microsoft on Monday. The company also said it is buying Calista Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based company that has technology to improve the performance of remote desktops. The company has a patented approach for creating a virtualized graphics processor, which can help with 3D and other image-rendering tasks when doing so-called "presentation virtualization." Microsoft also expanded its alliance with thin-client specialist Citrix Systems.
Microsoft is also cutting the price of a new product for large businesses that want to run Vista on a server and use either a PC or thin client to act as a terminal to display the information. O'Rourke said that businesses that are part of its Software Assurance program will be able to use the technology by paying a license fee. For Windows PCs, the charge is $23 per machine a year, while thin clients will require a fee of about $110 annually.
That represents a price cut of about 25 percent to 50 percent compared with Microsoft's original plans.
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