While Intel appears to be moving toward a future of more efficient, higher-performance technology, Microsoft, alas, appears bent on the exact opposite. This will inevitably lead to the decoupling of the seemingly-omnipotent WinTel duopoly that has reigned almost unchallenged for two decades. Their paths diverge more every year. Intel continues to build smaller, faster chips. Microsoft continues its slog toward larger, slower, less-reliable operating systems. Microsoft makes the only mass-market software where the "newer, better" version results in a pronounced regression to a prior state of primitive system crashes and cryptic error messages.