Microsoft hires Sun chip expert
Microsoft has hired the man in charge of Sun’s microchip division. It’s sparked some rumors about Microsoft getting into hardware production, but it seems more likely the role will involve smoothing out problems between software and hardware.
Marc Tremblay, formerly the chief technology officer for the Microelectronics unit at Sun, has joined Microsoft with the offbeat job title of “distinguished engineer”. There’s no sign that Sun will try to block the move, even though such senior executives normally have lengthy no-compete clauses.
A similar case involving IBM and Apple wound up in an out-of-court settlement so did not set a precedent about how closely two computer firms must compete for such clauses to be enforceable.
Tremblay had spearheaded the development of many Sun chips in his decade-plus career with the firm, most notably the UltraSparc II processor known as the Blackbird.
Microsoft says Tremblay’s new role will be to “oversee cross-company technical task forces and strategic direction for the company’s software and semiconductor technologies.” He’ll be part of a division titled Strategic Software/Silicon Architectures, known internally as SiArch.
Naturally there is speculation that the move indicates Microsoft could be getting into chip production. There’s no serious evidence to back that though, and it’s unlikely news of Microsoft making such a firm move into computer hardware wouldn’t have broken before it started acquiring new staff.
The most credible theory is that Tremblay will be working on the technical issues involved in making Microsoft products work well with a wide range of chips. Chief among these issues could be optimizing Windows to work more effectively for parallel computing where a single computer can carry out multiple calculations simultaneously.
Trembles’sAnother possibility is that Tremblay’s expertise could be used on the Xbox 360, though in that case you’d expect him to work in the research division.
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