Microsoft is exploring the development of its own processors and has therefore added a new talent to its team. This is Mike Filippo, who will cross paths in the continuity of his professional career. The engineer worked as a chip architect at Apple, but will change Cupertino for Redmond and will report to the company led by Satya Nadella to work on Microsoft Azure.
According to Bloomberg, Filippo will join the team dedicated to Microsoft's cloud platform in order to develop new dedicated hardware. This means that, unlike what Apple has done in recent times with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, the fathers of Windows are not yet planning to create their own semiconductors to be applied in equipment for sale to the public. At least not for now.
What Microsoft would have in mind is to create the necessary components to power the servers on which Azure runs. In fact, the initiative is not exactly new; Rumors of the company experimenting with its own processors to implement in its data centers have been circulating since at least the end of 2020. However, until now the company has not delivered any major news in this regard.
However, the incorporation of Mike Filippo could mean an important step to accelerate the project. In addition to his experience at Apple, the now Microsoft Azure engineer previously worked at AMD, Intel and ARM. In fact, according to MacRumors, in the latter he was in charge of the development of chips such as the Cortex-A76, A72 and A57.
Azure servers could have chips of Microsoft
Image: Microsoft Azure Azure has become one of the fundamental legs in the current business structure of Microsoft. It is currently the second most used cloud platform in the world, only behind Amazon Web Services. Those of Redmond have an important reach to business clients, and have even bid internationally to win contracts with government agencies.
But Microsoft has also found in Azure the possibility of enhancing other products. Such is the case of Windows 365, a cloud PC service that allows users to contract a virtual computer according to the necessary specifications, and access it from a web browser.
On the other hand, this has also allowed it to form new commercial alliances. Last November Microsoft allied with SEGA, which will develop games from the cloud through Azure.
In the case of Apple, we'll see how it affects the departure of Mike Filippo. During his time at the Californian company, the engineer has been credited as being in charge of developing fundamental technologies for the iPhone and other devices. Let us remember that at the end of 2021 those from Cupertino also lost Jeff Wilcox , who emigrated to Intel after serving as director of Mac System Architecture.
