Microsoft Aspires To Rival Apple With Its Own Chipset: Will It Finally Happen?

Microsoft has gained its market position with a clear focus on the enterprise segment but its hardware ambitions remain and a new report claims the company wants to build its own custom SoC like Apple for its Windows 12-powered machines. Microsoft has tried its luck with ARM previously but the nature of the business is capital-intensive and the resources needed to pull this off require the vendors to have a large-scale supply.

Apple has been able to meet both these criterias which has helped the company develop its M-series chip, which is now in its third-generation.

Microsoft is reportedly hiring people to build its custom SoC, which means the process is going to be long and the company will have to invest billions to make the project a reality. One of the positions listed is the Principal SoC Silicon Architect who will be “responsible for building complex, state-of-the-art SOCs using leading silicon technology nodes.” The post has been taken down since then but clearly shows the direction in which Microsoft wants to move in the near future.

Major tech brands have been involved in their custom SoC plans for a few years, especially the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung.

Microsoft planning for its own hardware is hardly surprising but the fact that it is only putting out hiring posts now suggests the company has been late in its strategy to build a robust ecosystem which has both software and hardware products. The report hints the new hardware will be in place by the time Windows 12 launches but it is a rather ambitious timeline set by Microsoft.

Having its own fleet of chipset is helpful in many ways. The company has greater control on the quality and performance of the products, as Apple has shown with the M-series SoC upgrades in the past 12 months. Not only has the Mac lineup been boosted, Apple has managed to replace the A-series chip on the iPads with the M1 SoC.

Microsoft could have a similar strategy in place with the Surface devices that includes a 2-in-1 PC, a foldable phone and even have an iMac-like PC in the future.

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