Ballmer: Intel rubbish at making chips

The Inquirer recently published a piece in which Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was reported to have made some decidedly uncomplimentary remarks about Intel at an event in London-- an event that, coincidentally or not so coincidentally, has Intel as one of its sponsors. Interviewed on stage at the "Technologies to Change your Business" event, Ballmer said that while Intel can double the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months, the microprocessor company has no way of using the traditional transistors to "make the chips run faster." What I found interesting is that Ballmer went on to lament Intel's shift from making faster processors to more processors, referring to Intel's extensive work on multi-core technology. The downside here, according to Ballmer, would be that this one change alone "mandates and necessitates ongoing OS innovation."

To read more about what Steve Ballmer said:
- check out this The Inquirer article