While the NT kernel was designed with support for multiple architectures in mind (MS call this HAL), it doesn't really matter in the end. And I'm not saying tha

While the NT kernel was designed with support for multiple architectures in mind (MS call this HAL), it doesn't really matter in the end. And I'm not saying that MS engineers are not capable of releasing the NT kernel for other architectures in reasonable time. The real problem here is the userspace. For political/business/culture reasons, there is almost nobody taking other architectures into account when developing theirs applications. Most vendors face difficulties even when porting programs to 64 version of the same thing. So why would anybody sane port NT kernel to other architectures, when all the userspace programs are practically unportable? Compare that with the world of unix clones and it's culture: the portability it's not just theoretically possible, it's also part of it's culture.