Secret emails: Intel pressured Microsoft to certify chips "Vista capable"
Scott Duke Harris, San Jose Mercury News,San Jose, Calif. -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 3/3/2008 4:47:00 PM
Internal Microsoft email revealed through a federal class-action lawsuit has provided a revealing look at the software giant's sometimes tense dealings with Intel.
The email correspondence, which surfaced in a class-action lawsuit over Microsoft's troubled launch of Windows Vista last year, suggests that Intel pressured Microsoft into certifying certain chips as capable of running the new operating system to enhance Intel's sales—and that Microsoft caved to that pressure.
Intel declined comment on those assertions. "It's private litigation between plaintiffs and Microsoft, and we're not a party to it," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.
But the Silicon Valley chip maker strongly reacted to assertions made in one email from Microsoft general manager John Kalkman that Microsoft had acted "to help Intel make their quarterly earnings."
"Kalkman has no visibility—zero visibility—into Intel's internal financial performance or forecasts related to microprocessers, chip sets, motherboards or any other products. Nor does he have any understanding of those products on our financials," Mulloy said.
Revealing such internal financial information without public disclosure would be a violation of U.S. securities law.
The email was unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman last week in a lawsuit against Microsoft arising from customer complaints that lower-end PCs carrying the "Windows Vista Capable" designation couldn't run its touted Aero graphics system.
At issue is whether Microsoft misled customers by labeling PCs carrying the Intel 915 chipset as "Vista Capable" even if they could only run the Vista Basic version.
Internal email showed one dissatisfied customer to be Windows Product Management Vice President Mike Nash, who wrote this message to other Windows executives: "I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop. I chose my laptop because it had the Vista logo and was pretty disappointed. I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."
The email reveals internal discord at Microsoft over its decision to certify the Intel chips. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which first reported the story, recounted this February 2006 email exchange between Microsoft's Mike Ybarra to Jim Allchin, then chief of Microsoft Windows:
"We are caving to Intel. We are allowing Intel to drive our consumer experience. (Computer makers) support our goals here and they've made graphics investments to drive the (user experience) with consumers. I don't understand why we would cave on this when the potential to drive the full (user experience) is right in front of us."
Allchin replied: "It might be a mistake. I wasn't involved and it is hard for me to step in now and reverse everything again."
At another point, Allchin wrote: "We really botched this."
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