Posted on 02/09/2012 1:13:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Microsoft's Windows chief Steven Sinofsky just put up 8,000+ word blog post on Microsoft's plans for Windows 8 on the low-powered ARM processors that today run the iPad and most other tablets.
This is the most critical part of Windows 8.
Like every version of Windows, Windows 8 will probably dominate the market for traditional notebook PCs and desktop PCs.
But it also has to take on the iPad, which is now outselling desktop PCs and had sales last quarter equal to 17 percent of the traditional PC market.
For Microsoft's hardware partners to make Windows 8 tablets that are competitive with the iPad in terms of battery life, they're probably going to have to use ARM chipsets.
Microsoft first announced that Windows 8 would run on ARM "systems on a chip" from Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments back in January 2011. It was a bit of a shock at the time — Windows has traditionally been sold only for Intel-type (x86 and 64-bit) processors.
But since then, Microsoft hasn't revealed many more details, leaving us to wonder exactly what applications would be available and whether it would ship at the same time as Windows 8 for traditional Intel-based PCs.
Now, we know a lot more. The highlights:
* There will be a separate version of Windows called "Windows On ARM," not "Windows 8 for ARM" ... or "Windows 8" anything for that matter. It is not the same as Windows 8 for traditional PCs, but shares a lot of code and components.
* It will run a special version of Office. There will be versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Windows On ARM. The apps will be designed to work on touch screens, will have full document compatibility with traditional versions of Office,
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
More features:
* You won’t power these things off. Windows On ARM PCs will be like other smartphones and tablets — the screen will go dark and it will enter a low-power mode. But you’ll probably never turn it off.
* There will be ways for developers to write for both platforms at once. This is complicated, and gets into developer-speak, but basically if you’re using an abstracted or “high-level” programming language, such as C#, Visual Basic, XAML (all Microsoft-specific) or JavaScript and HTML5 (common Web-standard languages), then you can write one “Metro” style program and have it automatically work on both ARM-based devices and traditional PCs. If you want to write more directly to the hardware using C or C++, you’ll have to do some extra work.
* It will not be possible to port existing Windows apps to the new platform. It’s a total rewrite.
* It will ship around the same time as regular Windows 8. That is the “collective goal” of Microsoft and its hardware partners.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR MORE...
I think youve got it right tho. I cant think of anything from MS that isnt a buggy POS. Perhaps they should just rename Windows to POS.
Will it kill it the same way the Zune killed the iPod? Or the same way the Windows 8 phone killed the iPhone?
I know it’s tres trendy to knock Microsoft, but I have a great deal of admiration for MS, and think that competition for I-anything is a good thing.
But look at all the jobs needed for people needed to service that jinky POS operating system.
There is little worse in the technical field that an apple fanboi. Indentify quickly and remove asap.
big bang theory characters routinely make fun of “pretender geniuses” at the apple store.
“* It will not be possible to port existing Windows apps to the new platform. It’s a total rewrite.”
That’s too bad because the biggest advantage of Windows is all the software that’s available for it.
You May have some work to do...
NOAA drops BlackBerry, embraces iPhone and iPad
http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/09/noaa-drops-blackberry-embraces-iphone-and-ipad/
Halliburton decides to dump BlackBerry for iPhone
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/halliburton-decides-to-dump-blackberry-for-iphone-2012029/
Apple stock soars, company worth more than Google, Microsoft combined
http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/09/apple-stock-soars-company-worth-more-than-google-microsoft-com/
Apple Briefly Tops Exxon In Market Cap After Stunning Quarter
Gates hasn’t had an OS since DOS 6.22, the rest is simply DOS with Gloss, pathetic…
Oh please. No one is going to kill the iPad. By 2015, Apple’s stock will be at $1000, and MSFT at $23. and Apple will dominate mobile device profits until we are all dead.
“If you want to write more directly to the hardware using C or C++, you’ll have to do some extra work.”
This has always been the case.
“It will not be possible to port existing Windows apps to the new platform. It’s a total rewrite”
If the app in question is highly dependent on the Win32
event model and/or makes use of huge amounts of resources
(memory and/or pagefile) that is probably the case. This should not be a shock to anyone who considers the differences between hand held and desktop systems.
After spending an entire overnight at work battling Comcraptastic service - it went out at 12:40AM and was still out except for cable TV when I left at 7AM I can say my back up Android experince wasn’t a walk in the park.
All of my desktops were out as well as our news wires. The engineer for some reason turned off my back up wireless. And - admittedly my fault - I never learned how to find and move saved files on my tablet to machines that lined to a printer once I did get a wireless network up.
With deadlines looming I did contact someone coming in at 4:30 so he could bring in an old and and slow HP laptop and three radio stations ran off that and my Edge tablet until things were resolved.
What a night and a reminder for me to learn Linux and Android!
just like the palm?
just like the newton?
just like the wizard?
just like the pocket pc?
just like the symbian OS in europe?
just like univac mainframs?
“Apple sells a brand to a market demographic based on cool factor. They are not the most cutting edge technology, and they don’t offer any real value but their cool factor.”
That is absolutely not the case, but don’t let reality interfere with your views...
Apple will continue to dominate the tech landscape whether you like it or not. :-)
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