ARM hopes to lure Microsoft away from Intel

by Scott Bicheno on 29 July 2009, 16:12

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), ARM

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Shiny things

To further whet our appetite for the upcoming ARM powered mini-notebooks, Morris brought in a couple of prototypes. This netbook from Pegatron - the component manufacturing arm of ASUS - has been knocking around for a little while, but this was the first time we got to play with one.

 

 

The Pegatron was running Ubuntu and provided a nice, quick browsing experience. The most conspicuous feature, however, was how light it was and how cool it runs - it has no fan.

Battery life claims don't have much meaning until we're able to benchmark it ourselves, but the BoM (bill of materials) of $120 would enable products to priced comfortably below the critical price points ARM has identified as $200 and 1,000 RMB. A mini-notebook priced below £100 would certainly get some attention over here.

 

 

The other shiny thing on display was a very small desktop box. There weren't many details about this, but Morris estimated a BoM of around $80, which takes it firmly into impulse purchase territory.

 


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Posted by Kato-2 - Wed 29 Jul 2009 16:28
I think that's some unlikely outcomes Arm is hoping for, while Windows ran on multi-architectures a long time ago back in the early NT days MS surely have not kept that up.

Also there is the simple problem of distributing applications the regular method used does not support fat binary's were multiple architectures like x86 or Arm could be supported. Only .NET based applications have such capabilities.

I really cant see MS porting the full Windows OS to Arm it would be a colossal project for a low cost market.

Maybe if MS polished up WinCE/Mobile to look like Win7 (it still looks like Win95 underneath) and pushed more .NET app development including Arm then that just might happen.
Posted by aidanjt - Wed 29 Jul 2009 19:56
Kato-2
I think that's some unlikely outcomes Arm is hoping for, while Windows ran on multi-architectures a long time ago back in the early NT days MS surely have not kept that up.

Also there is the simple problem of distributing applications the regular method used does not support fat binary's were multiple architectures like x86 or Arm could be supported. Only .NET based applications have such capabilities.

I really cant see MS porting the full Windows OS to Arm it would be a colossal project for a low cost market.

Maybe if MS polished up WinCE/Mobile to look like Win7 (it still looks like Win95 underneath) and pushed more .NET app development including Arm then that just might happen.
It's not that big a deal really. The vast majority of Windows code is compiled, so the biggest work they will need to undergo is porting their compilers to ARM, and a sprinkling of ARM assembly in the kernel.

Even if Microsoft refuses to provide an ARM port, at the price points Pegatron are talking about, it gives ordinary people a real incentive to give other Operating Systems a serious go.
Posted by GaryRW - Thu 30 Jul 2009 14:42
aidanjt
…it gives ordinary people a real incentive to give other Operating Systems a serious go.

Which presumably is what would make it worth Microsoft's while to port windows to support ARM - not the actual profit from those sales, but to ensure consumers didn't get out of the mindset that a pc has to have windows.
Posted by idefis - Fri 31 Jul 2009 03:14
Clearly ARM is playing the same game ASUS did with netbook … see how well Ubuntu is working with ARM… Nothing new, just the typical way all these companies are now negociating with Microsoft.

Anyway, that's excellent news for Linux for many reasons:

1- Companies, even if they are not interested to go on the dark side (Linux) yet, can negotiate the price and a cooperation with Microsoft easyly. In any case, it hurts Microsoft revenues and profitability. Even if M$ won netbook market, it was done at the price of literally giving the OS for free.

2- Microsoft will have a hard time to keep both enemies INTEL and ARM with him.

3- Companies starts to realising how easy it can be to customise Linux thanks to the open source code and get the best performance out of it. Look, you can have the same Ubuntu GUI and same user experience with a completely different hardware.

Microsoft boat is slowly sinking and microprocessor manufacturer (INTEL and ARM) as well as hardware manufacturer (HP, DELL, … ) are slowly realising that they need to leave Microsoft if they don't want to sink with it. Once they will realise that they must do like Apple and provide both hardware and tailored OS they will see what Linux has to offer them and will find a way to expand and control there market share.

They is just too much battle for Microsoft. How long will it be able to survive? 10 years ?
Posted by Orbixx - Fri 07 Aug 2009 04:34
Linux still has a long way to go to become a viable desktop operating system to the masses. But I think it's very viable to a lot of companies, especially those with custom requirements.