Top 10 technology marriages made in heaven

The UK is taking a break today to celebrate the Royal Wedding, and we thought we'd take a moment to reflect on great weddings that have proved a success in the technology industry.

The nuptials of Catherine Elizabeth Middleton and William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor, Duke of Cambridge, is a happy event for the couple and their families, and it seems that a large part of the world is awash with news of the double balcony kiss or Pippa Middleton in that dress. For some, the adulation of the monarchy today is excessive, and they have a point.

But to my American friends who make snarky comments about monarchy I would remind them that it's not too long ago that the US was ruled by an incompetent who got the job because of his parents.

We've covered the Top 10 mergers already in these lists, but what's been nice about this wedding is that it hasn't been a traditional merging of monarchical families, but a relationship borne of romance. So instead we're looking at some of the greatest corporate relationships the industry has thrown together, that ended in marriage or simple cohabitation.

Honourable Mention: Dell/Intel
Iain Thomson: We've got to be slightly careful with this one for legal reasons, so let's call it the love that dare not speak its name.

Dell, as the largest systems builder in the market for a long time, has naturally had a close relationship with Intel for many years. When new chipsets became available Dell was almost always there at launch with a new model or three, and in return benefitted from primary access to new technology so that the latest systems came online as soon as possible.

However, there are some who felt that the relationship was too close for comfort. For years AMD executives complained that they couldn't get a foot in the door with Dell for any major deployment of their chips. Even when AMD's Opteron server chip was beating Intel's offerings like a red-headed stepchild, Dell held off.

Intel and AMD have settled their disagreements now, with no fault attached, but it appears that for many years Dell was getting serious incentives from Intel, which helped the company's bottom line considerably. The two companies are moving apart now, but one suspects the relationship was much closer than anyone thought.

Shaun Nichols: As Iain noted, this one was never officially acknowledged, so you'll have to excuse my heavy use of the word 'allegedly'.

Intel and Dell were locked in heated battles at the time. Intel was neck and neck with AMD in the PC and server processor markets, each playing on the other's strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, Dell was facing intense competition from HP in the extremely cut-throat PC market, where margins are low and competition high.

Obviously we can't say that anything officially happened, but if you look at the deal the companies allegedly made, you can see where it makes a lot of sense. Intel gets a high-profile customer win with Dell, which in turn gets some discounts that helped the company boost its profits.

Other than the inconvenient fact that the alleged deal was illegal, it would have been a very nice arrangement for the two parties involved.

Honourable Mention: Intel/McAfee
Shaun Nichols: This was a recent tie-up, perhaps one that is still in its honeymoon period. But so far, the merger between Intel and McAfee looks promising.

There has long been talk that McAfee was looking to be acquired by a larger vendor, and after several years of speculation, Intel ponied up $8bn for the security firm.

This deal could pay dividends for both companies on the silicon level. McAfee could offer security tools for use directly on Intel's chips, allowing an even deeper level of malware prevention. Additionally, the partnership opens up the embedded computing market, which is emerging as a new target for attacks.

There are some potential issues to work out, however. In order to avoid possible anti-trust actions, Intel will need to open its platforms to offer competing security firms the same level of access McAfee enjoys.

Iain Thomson: There was more than a little WTF? going on when Intel announced its merger with McAfee, but it makes more and more sense as you think about it.

The current security situation is untenable. Security firms like McAfee are still too reliant on signature-based anti-virus control, and that just doesn't work any more. For all the advances in heuristics and behavioural monitoring, the IT industry has yet to solve the problem of holes in software.

Hardware, on the other hand, offers considerable advantages against current malware attacks. True, a hardware chip is limited to a single platform, but it's incredibly hard to hack from outside.

Add a software protection layer on top and you'll see something much more secure, and which ties the user to a set of vendors. Win-win as far as Intel/McAfee are concerned, but will businesses buy in?