[p_ing]

"Server systems" but not server systems that Microsoft targeted. NT4 Enterprise Server (1996) only supported up to 8 sockets (some companies wrote their own HAL to exceed that limit). And 8 sockets was 8 threads with no NUMA back then, not something that would have been an issue for the purposes of this discussion.

[monocasa]

Microsoft was absolutely wanting to target large servers at the time. They were actively trying to kill off the vendor unices in the 90s.

[p_ing]

They successfully killed off vendor unicies in the 90s, but that was thanks to cheap x86.

[monocasa]

That was what stuck, but supporting the big servers was also part of their multifaceted strategy. That's why the alpha, itanium, powerpc, and mips ports existed.