When it came time to renegotiate the price, Hoff made a critical recommendation to Noyce, one that helped create a huge market for general-purpose chips and assured that Intel would remain a driver of the digital age. It was a deal point that Bill Gates and Microsoft would emulate with IBM a decade later. In return for giving Busicom a good price, Noyce insisted that Intel retain the rights to the new chip and be allowed to license it to other companies for purposes other than making a calculator.