Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20026354-64.html
http://armdevices.net/2010/12/22/mic...or-arm-at-ces/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...605593000.html
Could this pose a true threat to Arm Linux? Could this also leave Intel in the dust as Arm get more performance for price and power consumption ratio.

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

This could be potentially be very huge it gets rid of Intel's one true advantage in the market place.

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

...and of course it opens up the possibility of lots of ARM packages for WINE... :D

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

True that:)

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

It might be waiting for MeeGo to see how they would do it.

Once they solve the age old dilemma:
(cross compatability, decent speed, limited/no fragmentation, with tools to make easy programs and bypass the political bs)
... Win 8 could be the new windows for 3 consecutive terms (ie Win9 and Win10 could potentially be minor upgrades).

I hope to see Dual 2GHz Cortex A9 (28nm) silicon with SGX543MP8 GPU matched with 2GB RAM, 256GB SSD, beautiful displays and plethora of sub-units (dsp, usbhost, hdmi out, bluray, phone, 3G, gps, compass, light detector, cameras etc) ... using (full desktop) Windows!

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

Yah lets hope Windows on Arm is the real deal not a cheesy mobile version like Windows Ce. With Windows on ARM average people will finally want a Arm powered laptop.

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

The way they plan on doing it now: push everyone towards .NET and make everything managed code. JIT takes care of the platform specific bits.

That said, if they plan to use this on anything but ARM-based "desktops" and don't update the UI for small screen netbooks and tablets, they're screwed.

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

Windows is meaningless without the huge collection of x86 software.
How many older programs are going to be ported for ARM?

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

Errr dude, just buy a laptop (and if you want insane specs, buy an Alienware) :)

Re: Windows 8 on ARM Discuss
 

The problem is .NET won't solve the problem - there are tons of widely used legacy libraries/applications that are not 100% .NET (and often containing 3rd party binary blobs or DLLs that need to trickle down first) so it will take several years to migrate to such a setup.

Not to mention the massive confusion which would hurt MS real bad - imagine you have a certain version of Photoshop or AutoCAD you paid serious money for. Would you expect that suddenly you need to take care WHAT edition of windows do you have to run a certain application ? One of the reasons cited for the relatively small Linux netbook market share is that people wanted their existing/familiar apps and layout. Sure, the next major versions of those might support ARM but that won't help your existing software, and MS can't force 3rd party companies to upgrade you to the ARM version for free.

So the bottom line is - it's not Microsoft per se that is the barrier to ARM, but the application ecosystem that was nurtured in the (near) eternal backward-compatibility promise.