Tremblay this week joined Microsoft as a distinguished engineer after previously serving as chief technology officer in Sun's microelectronics business. He will manage a team of technologists in the strategic software/silicon architectures division, a little-known group that sets the strategy for software and hardware technologies for Microsoft.

In multithread computing tasks are divided up and executed simultaneously across multiple processor cores and threads. The concept is often called parallel computing and Tremblay has made major contributions to the field.

He holds over 100 patents related to computer architecture, and played a key role in the development of Sun's multithreaded and multicore Sparc processors.

Tremblay's background could be instrumental in helping Microsoft build speedier software, like future operating systems, said Dan Olds, principal analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group.

"He's definitely someone who'd be able to give them pretty good advise on it," Olds said.