I'm wondering what's happening at Microsoft's camp regarding M1. They are in a weird situation. They depend on AMD/Intel to deliver. This is a massive dependency for Microsoft. Are there other large corporations have this big of a dependency? I understand that Microsoft's revenue is shifting towards cloud, services, etc. But I think Windows is still "the" key to a lot of those offerings. Take a massive chunk of marke…
If Apple releases Silicon that begins to dominate in other areas by enough of a lead that it can't be ignored by purchasers, then Microsoft could start to sweat, assuming no one finds the hole in the market tempting enough.
So I would think the real question is how long will it take for competitors to step up their CPU efficiency.
Intel has ground to a halt, essentially, on the efficiency front. They continue to struggle with process improvements, and have had to do some tricky engineering to work within the constraints of an older process, while also having to settle for increasing power demands.
AMD has been fairly relentless in their forward march over the past 3-4 years, improving efficiency on their x86 chips. The next couple of years are going to be very telling how well that march of progress competes with Apple's march with their ARM-based CPUs.
There's still so much popularity in the Windows/x86 space that AMD likely doesn't feel overwhelmingly threatened, but one would imagine they do not have their collective heads in the sand, because they are still a market underdog. They cannot risk resting on their laurels while Intel catches up, and they are likely very well aware of Apple's thrust into the competitive CPU landscape. Whether they must switch to ARM to remain competitive is not yet clear, but will be in time.