Alternatively, Microsoft could acquire the x86 business from Intel and then invest in Intel as a dedicated foundry. Although, that raises the question of wheth

Alternatively, Microsoft could acquire the x86 business from Intel and then invest in Intel as a dedicated foundry. Although, that raises the question of whether MS would be better off staying married to x86 long-term or moving in the direction of Apple Silicon / Rosetta. I'm inclined to think that they would be best served by sticking with x86 long-term for the sake of optimal backwards-compatibility, so long as there isn't some inherent reason for the x86 instruction set to be dramatically less efficient than ARM. I don't see why they couldn't ultimately catch up to or at least become competitive with Apple by pushing development and adoption of x86 SOCs alongside standards like Evo, which their taking over the business could potentially help accelerate.