Thursday, June 16 12:00 AM ET

Windows to Run on Intel Processors

Redmond , WA - Microsoft announced today at a press gathering that Windows XP will be ported to work on the Intel range of x86 processors.

Microsoft denies that this has anything to do with recent announcement from Apple Computer at their worldwide developers conference.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was enthusiastic about the move today as he described one of the largest moves in the operating system's history.

"We want to show the world that we can innovate just as well as Apple, this is not about copying them, it's just coincidental."

He described the process by which developers will be able to make the transition. "Anyone who is using our current set of development tools will be able to recompile for Intel and be working within years"

Microsoft will be offering a developers' transition pack that consists of an Intel Pentium 4 based PC with a prerelease version of "Windows for Intel" for $99,999. Ballmer justified the price tag by stating that developers "who make serious money from Windows" will want to be on this transition early in the development cycle. "And besides, there's a 'where's Clippy?' coloring book inside every developer pack," said Ballmer.

When Mr. Ballmer was asked from the press gathering whether Bill Gates had been consulted about this "move" he became agitated as he said that he "need not consult Bill on every little technical issue."

Apple has suggested a two-year time frame for their switch to Intel. Microsoft is not so optimistic, they believe that their transition will take 5-7 years due to the plethora of different hardware implementations they must support.

"Moving from one processor to another is easy", he said, "Moving from one processor to that same processor, well, that's difficult."