IBM PC Compatible - "IBM PC Compatible" Becomes "Wintel"

"IBM PC Compatible" Becomes "Wintel"

During the 1990s, IBM's influence on PC architecture became increasingly irrelevant. An IBM-brand PC became the exception rather than the rule. Instead of continuing to consider compatibility with the IBM PC as important, vendors began to emphasize compatibility with the evolution of Microsoft Windows. During 1993, a version of Windows NT was released that could operate on processors other than the x86 set. It did require that applications be recompiled—- which most developers didn't do—- still, its hardware independence was used for Silicon Graphics (SGI) x86 workstations – thanks to NT's Hardware abstraction layer (HAL), they could operate NT (and its vast application library).

No mass-market personal computer hardware vendor dared to be incompatible with the latest version of Windows, and Microsoft's annual WinHEC conferences provided a setting in which Microsoft could lobby for and —in some cases dictate— the pace and direction of the hardware of the PC industry. Microsoft and Intel had become so important to the ongoing development of PC hardware that industry writers began using the portmanteau word Wintel to refer to the combined hardware-software system. This terminology itself is becoming a misnomer, as Intel has lost absolute control over the direction of x86 hardware development with AMD's AMD64, and non-Windows operating systems like Mac OS X and Linux have established a presence on the x86 architecture.