Microsoft to Reveal New Version of Windows ( for ARM Chips )

Wall Street Journal ^ | DECEMBER 21, 2010, 5:09 P.M. ET | BY DON CLARK AND NICK WINGFIELD

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Microsoft Corp. next month plans to discuss a new version of its widely used Windows operating system that targets low-power devices and adds support for a second strain of chip technology, according to people briefed on Microsoft company's plans.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Is Said to Announce Version of Windows for ARM Chips

[for-q-clinton]

Looks like they are going to take over the tablet market next.

[Da Coyote]

Wow.

Yugo lite.

Can’t wait.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From * November 19, 2010, 3:25 PM GMT

Intel Microprocessor Business ‘Doomed,’ Claims ARM Co-Founder

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By Ben Rooney

Intel’s microprocessor business is doomed claimed one of Europe’s leading tech entrepreneurs as mobile computing will replace the PC in the next wave of computing.

Austrian-born Dr. Hermann Hauser, a co-founder of ARM, a rival chip designer, also said the value of chips which ARM collects a royalty on has overtaken Intel’s microprocessor revenue this year for the first time. Dr. Hauser remains a share holder in ARM, but is not on the board of directors.

Approximately 95% of the world’s mobile handsets and more than one-quarter of all electronic devices use an ARM chip.

[adorno]

Yugo lite.

What prompts you to say that?

Is there something you know about the OS that the rest of the world is not aware of?

The product is not going to be released for another 2 years, and you are way ahead of the crowd in prejudging it. But, perhaps there is something that you do know that nobody else does. So, let's hear it.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the Register:

Microsoft ARMs Windows for iPad assault (allegedly)

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Tablet OS hits ARM chips next month, says report

Microsoft is set to unveil a new incarnation of Windows that runs on ARM chips, according to a report citing two people familiar with the company's plans.

Bloomberg reports that Redmond will announce an ARM-friendly version of Windows early next month at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. According to Bloomberg's unnamed sources, the new OS is designed for battery-powered devices, including tablets and other handhelds, and it will also run on Intel and AMD chips.

Microsoft declined to comment on the report. But this summer, the software giant signed a new pact with ARM Holdings to license the chip architecture. Microsoft has previously worked with ARM on other versions of Windows, including Window Phone and Windows Embedded. From the late 90s, ARM chips ran most Pocket PC handhelds as well as Windows CE-based netbooks and tablets.

[the invisib1e hand]

Idunno. First bill leaves, then that awful thing after XP came out - still cat figure out all those frakin icons... Made a good living with excel/vbc and will always appreciate that, but, sorry. I already own an iPhone. Next ones a Mac. Can’t wait to get my hands on Garage Band.

[RegulatorCountry]

Looks like they are going to take over the tablet market next.

Yep, they're going to conquer the world with Really Large Icons™ after blowing the doors off of holidays sales for WinPhone 7, lol.

Ballmer can't tie his own shoes, he blows a gasket instead.

[the invisib1e hand]

Can’t, that is. And excel/vba is what I meant.

[mc5cents]

[Dr. Sivana]

He predicted that Windows tablets will be cheaper than the iPad.

If Android Tablets aren't cheaper than the iPad (on similar hardware), how would a Windows version be cheaper?

We have had Windows for MIPS and Windows for Alpha. We have also had Windows XP Tablet Edition (MS thought that 2004 was going to be the year of the Tablet). Putting full-fledged Windows on a Tablet, or a modfied full-fledged version means that MS doesn't get it. The iPad is NOT a Netbook with a touch screen.

MS COULD make a Tablet OS that uses the Windows API and would make ports of existing Apps easy. Or, they could be brave and just concentrate on a Windows interface that can run existing Java and Flash that the iPad can't, and maybe Windows Live for some of the app stuff. But no. They are going to blow it. Again. And I am not particularly rooting for them to blow it.

[rivercat]

Yugo lite.

Sheesh... Windows hate is sooooo 2005.

[rivercat]

LOL, you like that rainbow Apple, don’t you!

[Dr. Sivana]

“If you look at the history of computing there was mainframe, which was dominated by IBM, then came the mini computer dominated by DEC, then came the third wave with workstations dominated by Sun and Apollo, then the PC, and now it’s the mobile architecture that is going to be the main computing platform at least on the terminal side.

“There is no case in the history of computing where a company that has dominated one wave has dominated the next wave and there is no case where a new wave did not kill the previous wave — as in obliterate them…the people that dominate the PC market are Intel and Microsoft.”

Mainframes and Minis are still with us (IBM, including AS400). Many of the people who buy into mobile computing will still have a desktop, just as stereo console were not made obsolete by portable radios. It is lazy thinking, especially in a still emerging industry, to think that every wave obliterates rathers than complements the last one.

Intel will still sell plenty of microprocessors. They will sell them for desktops, they will sell them for all those servers running cloud apps that all the mobile units are accessing. They will sell them because processors scale well, and Intel has the means to make a WHOLE lot of them, and can therefore have adequately performing products that are profitable on a consistent basis.

ARM is, and will do very well, too. But saying Intel has a bad business model for the next wave is as stupid as Michael Dell saying a few years ago that Apple should just give up.

[ShadowAce]

[antiRepublicrat]

How many years behind Apple this time? Microsoft’s lack of vision is disturbing, a follower, not a leader.

Still it’s good. Competition always is. I’ll buy one if it’s better than the others.

[antiRepublicrat]

MS COULD make a Tablet OS that uses the Windows API and would make ports of existing Apps easy.

Please no more Windows API. Time to let it die. Use .NET and other APIs instead.

[Dr. Sivana]

You are likely right. I am not a programmer. I’m simply suggesting that Tablet users want access to functionally similar Windows apps, without the Windows overhead.

[martin_fierro]