As a entirely Linux user this would be worrying, I'm not convinced Microsoft owning an entire "vertical" would bode well for us, even the new shiny Microsoft of Tomorrow.
None of them have shown any desire to support open firmware. Intel makes SSDs, Wifi cards, CPUs, and motherboard chipsets that all have binary blob firmware you cannot audit or trust.
AMD really only makes GPUs with blobs, and that is probably more in the ATI legacy than anything. They have been pretty good about coreboot support of their vanilla chipsets for years, even if it is usually delayed several months to a year post release.
current gen AMD chipsets require binary components on the CPU ("Binary PI") for RAM init, like Intel. And like Intel, they now have a separate CPU running signed code (Platform Security Processor, ARM based).
Yes and I'm currently all Intel (was AMD only for nearly a decade) but the influence of the worlds largest OS vendor owning the 2nd largest x86 supplier would be powerful even for those of us not using AMD stuff.
