| Finding faults in the PC is not the problem; fixing them
is. The basic architecture of PCs remained stagnant for a
decade because IBM lost control of the standard in the
1980s and nobody else was strong enough to claim the
position of top dog. Even the leading clone vendors like Compaq, Packard Bell, Gateway 2000, and Dell don't wield enough influence to force fundamental changes. Besides, profit margins are too slim to fund the costly R&D that's required to make it happen. Result: a power vacuum that has attracted Intel and Microsoft. Both industry giants are frustrated by the problems of the PC system architecture. Intel wants to keep the PC market growing in order to sell more chips; Microsoft wants to ensure that PCs will be powerful enough to support its future ambitions for Windows. Their motivations are self-serving, but in the end, the whole industry will benefit if the result is more efficient systems. Intel built a lavish R&D facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, known as the Intel Architecture Lab (IAL). In effect, IAL is playing the same R&D role for penny-pinching clone vendors that Bell Labs used to play for the regional Bell telephone companies. IAL is responsible for inventing, refining, or promoting technologies that either fix problems in the PC architecture or create new applications that accelerate demand for PCs. These technologies and products include PCI, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Plug and Play (PnP), Telephony API (TAPI), Display Control Interface (DCI), Native Signal Processing (NSP), Digital Simultaneous Voice & Data (DSVD), ATX motherboards, Indeo video compression, ProShare videoconferencing, and CNN at Work. Microsoft has been playing a key role in developing such hardware/software technologies as PnP, USB, TAPI, and DCI. Recently, Microsoft has been going even further. In a bold imposition for a software company, Microsoft sponsors a yearly confab (the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC) and publishes an inch-thick manual ("Hardware Design Guide for Windows 95") that instructs hardware companies how to design their future PCs and peripherals. To win the coveted Windows 95 logo, system vendors must follow Microsoft's specifications, right down to putting little icons on the back of the computer so users can tell the mouse port from the keyboard port. It's hard to imagine a "WordPerfect Hardware Engineering Conference" or a "Hardware Design Guide for After Dark," but then, other companies are not Microsoft. While programmers at other software companies write to the hardware, Microsoft is redefining the hardware around Windows. Of course, Intel and Microsoft don't always see eye to eye — they've split over such things as DCI and NSP — but in general, they share the same goal: Fix the PC. Copyright 1994-1998 BYTE |