Microsoft has hired one of Apple's chip engineers to design its own custom server chips.  Mike Filippo, who only worked at Apple for 2.9 years had worked at arm for a decade, at Intel for five years and AMD for 8 years. The report characterizing Filippo as a Key Apple engineer would seem a little hyped.

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Microsoft is working on in-house processors for the servers running its cloud-computing services and Surface line of personal computers. 

The cloud computing heavy-weight relies heavily on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc to supply chips for its Azure cloud computing services as well as Surface PCs.

The move to hire Filippo implies that Microsoft is accelerating a push to create homegrown chips for its servers powering Azure cloud computing services, the report added. For more, read the full Reuters and/or BNN Bloomberg reports.