First, Windows shit the bed with Windows 8 and the material design and tiles and two desktops. It still ... REALLY ... sucks. And they didn't care, why would they? The money STILL came in.
Secondly, Intel sat on its laurels, and even worse, accepted a supplicative role to Microsoft in the Wintel "alliace". Intel absolutely should have pushed Linux on the desktop with some of their spare billions, if only to keep Microsoft honest, and to push hardware vendors. Even if it was under the guise of keeping compatibility high, or due diligence.
Linux has, for at least two decades, been the opportunity to showcase hardware features in Intel without waiting for Microsoft to scratch its butt and crap out another service pack about two years after the hardware feature was available. But Intel never got it.
It's not surprising they don't understand software, because from what I can tell of their management, they don't even understand hardware.
