I can't remember the last time anyone from Intel had to be prompted to endorse its partner in Wintel crimes.

Microsoft, of course, chose CES as the venue to introduce the first version of Windows to run on a processor based not on the Intel architecture but rather on ARM-based system-on-a-chips manufactured by TI, . Yes, Intel was also mentioned, but it clearly got second billing. That's also new.

It's as if they both decided to stay together for the sake of the kids while quietly seeing other people.

This semi-split has been brewing for some time. I recall a meeting back in the last century arranged by two Intel engineers with no media relations person in tow. That in itself was exceedingly odd, but it got stranger. Their apparent purpose: to demonstrate the lengths to which algorithms built into Intel's Pentium chips had compensated for the completely cockeyed way Windows loaded itself each time at startup. The implicit message: See what we have to put up with?

Microsoft, meanwhile, found itself on the wrong end of a class-action suit a few years ago, thanks in part to a truckload of embarrassing emails detailing how it had tweaked its "Vista capable" sticker program to include machines sporting an inferior Intel graphics chipset because Intel couldn't produce the actual "Vista capable" chipset in time. That had to stick in Ballmer's craw.