I think they're talking about going from an unprotected to a protected memory model. The windows 9x line was unprotected (ending with "Windows ME" circa 2000) a

I think they're talking about going from an unprotected to a protected memory model. The windows 9x line was unprotected (ending with "Windows ME" circa 2000) and NT was protected. The first consumer NT was XP in, what, 2002? That lines up with their "early 2000's" comment. Why they're deciding to credit Intel with protected memory models is beyond me, though. Maybe they thought they needed to give some credit to Intel for something to make the article seem more balanced.