I can see the connection. Microsft was even more vulnerable there than Intel. If we switch from the "Every year the clock rate goes up 30%" model to "50% more

I can see the connection. Microsft was even more vulnerable there than Intel. If we switch from the "Every year the clock rate goes up 30%" model to "50% more cores every year", you're going to trigger the "recompile the universe" event. This is an esistential-level threat for the Microsoft of 15 years ago. Microsoft's biggest selling point for years was the backwards compatibility. Keep running that old software forever, and the magic of Intel running the clock up means it still gets faster every year. If that train stops, you may well think "if I have to rebuild anyway to support many-cores, why not do so on Linux?"