IAL's decision to pursue NSP clashed with a similar project that was brewing at Microsoft. This led to IAL's decision to embark on NSP, a large software initiative to gradually move the algorithms and software implementations from DSPs to the central Intel microprocessor. NSP was, in that regard, a gold mine of power-hungry software workloads which were previously running on Digital Signal Processor chips. This strategy was fundamental to Intel's vision of a powerful central microprocessor made with its advanced chip building capabilities.

As a result of the increase in performance, Intel saw an opportunity to transfer software workloads from specialized microprocessors over to the central Intel microprocessors. Intel, whose microprocessors powered PC hardware designs, invested heavily in improving the performance of its chips.

NSP was a software initiative to allow Intel-based PCs to run time-sensitive code independently of the operating system, allowing real-time audio and video processing on the microprocessors of the mid-1990s. Native Signal Processing ( NSP) was an example of a significant software effort in IAL. Over time, IAL's work in software projects was gradually de-emphasized after the software efforts collided with similar activities by Microsoft. As IAL's software ambitions began to overlap with Microsoft's, a rivalry broke out between Intel and Microsoft as it related to the amount of influence, control, and the setting of standards in the rapidly growing PC industry. Rivalry with Microsoft Īround the same time in the PC industry, Microsoft was emerging as the de facto industry standard in PC Operating Systems and software application for the PC.

IAL pursued both hardware and software initiatives, both of which were important factors in the evolution of, and the control of, the PC industry. IAL was created by Intel Vice-president Ron Whittier together with Craig Kinnie and Steven McGeady to develop the hardware and software innovations considered to be lacking from PC OEMs and Microsoft in the late 1980s and 1990s. Intel Architecture Labs ( IAL) was the personal-computer system research-and-development arm of Intel during the 1990s.

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