Microsoft Threatens Intel’s Dominance, Says It Plans to Use ARM Server Chips

According to a report on The Verge, Intel ads, 98% of the cloud runs on Intel; this has given Intel a near-monopoly in the server industry. As a result of this, Microsoft has made a pledge to use ARM chips in its severs. Microsoft made this known long ago but has recently given a more highlight on it the Open Compute Summit this week, saying that it is a big deal.
Aside Amazon, Microsoft is the second biggest cloud company in the United States of America, and if it moves even a small bit of its business away from Intel’s products, it will be a serious threat to the veteran chipmaker’s most lucrative revenue stream which recorded about $7.5 billion operating profit last year.

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According to a report published on Verge, Jason Zander – Microsoft’s vice president of cloud computing said that the company had made a “significant commitment” to ARM servers — porting its Windows Server operating system onto ARM-powered designs by Qualcomm and Cavium, which were unveiled at the recently concluded Open Compute. According to him, Microsoft will not say how widely it plans on deploying ARM’s chips, and notes that these systems haven’t been integrated into consumer-facing services. Nevertheless, its intentions are clear.
"Windows ARM servers are coming because they don’t know exactly when."
He further said as I quote, “We wouldn't even bring something to a conference if we didn't think this was a committed project and something that's part of our road map,” Zander told Bloomberg. “It's not deployed into production yet, but that is the next logical step.”
According to the report, ARM design are part of Microsoft’s next generation of server hardware, intended to cut operational costs. Also, new hardware is being developed with a number of companies under the name Project Olympus. Other designs include systems running on AMD’s Naples processor, and on a variant of Intel’s own Skylake chips. Bloomberg reports that some of this new hardware will make its way into Microsoft’s data centers “later this year, but it is not clear if this refers to the designs using ARM processors.
Though it is not surprising, this appears to be a seismic change in the chip industry. Over the years, Microsoft has been slowly in pivoting away from Intel’s products, an act that will no doubt affect consumers negatively. Similarly, in December, 2016, Microsoft announced that a new generation of Windows 10 machines running on ARM chips was in the pipeline. The change in underlying hardware could mean devices that are more energy-efficient, and that offer cellular connectivity for less.
In a nutshell, this step Microsoft is taking could hurt Intel, and the implication could mean suffering as the PC market continues to shrink year after year. However, the sheer scale of Intel’s business means that any change in the industry will be slow. When disclosing its plans about the ARM-powered Windows 10 machines, Microsoft admitted that Intel chips would still provide a more powerful experience to users, and Intel is confident the same is true when it comes to servers.