Microsoft Ready To Talk Windows On ARM 342
An anonymous reader writes "After many months of working in secret, Microsoft is nearly ready to start talking about its plans to bring Windows to ARM-based processors. However, while the company is set to discuss the effort at next month's Consumer Electronics Show, there is still a lot that must be done before such products can hit the market. Among the steps needed is for hardware makers to create ARM-compatible drivers, a time-consuming effort that explains in part why Microsoft is talking about the initiative well ahead of any products being ready. Meanwhile, Ubuntu is already starting to ship on some ARM devices and running on many others."
Re:That's nice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft has already stopped supporting a good deal of its legacy software with the 64 bit editions of Windows (no more DOS or Win16 support). Quite frankly, I don't think supporting legacy software is as big a deal as it once was. Write everything under the .NET platform and it isn't that big a deal. Yeah, your old games won't work, but I'm wagering a lot of folks running Windows-for-ARM are not exactly going to be looking at running that old copy of Office 2003 anyways.
Why Windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are they trying to keep Windows? Yes it's a well-known brand name, but so is Microsoft. All they have to do is create a tablet-specific OS and leave all the compatibility headaches behind. And even without any compatibility headaches, most Windows applications weren't written with a touch interface in mind, so having a goal of Windows on a tablet is just asking for trouble.
Microsoft has an opportunity to start fresh, leave the Windows problems behind and create something new. But yet they don't.
Re:ARM now? (Score:5, Interesting)
NT was actually more stable on Alpha than it ever was on x86...
Drivers are not really a problem for ARM, since most of these devices will be small (tablets, netbooks etc) with fixed hardware, the hardware manufacturer will supply the necessary drivers.
The problem is apps...
Existing windows apps would need to be at the very least recompiled (or may require significantly more work depending on the code), and with most apps being closed source only the original vendor is in a position to do that... Now as with alpha, ppc mips and ia64, commercial vendors won't port their apps unless they see a market for them... And end users wont buy the platform unless they see available apps, catch 22.
Linux doesn't really have this problem because the vast majority of applications are open source, and have already been compiled for multiple architectures. If the original author hasn't ever tried to compile the app for another platform, chances are one of the distributors has (debian has been supporting arm cpus for years)...
The only advantage ARM has over alpha/ppc/mips/ia64 is cost of hardware, if those platforms had been price competitive with x86 they would have had a lot more sales to linux users (i know many people who wanted an alpha but just couldn't justify the cost).
There is a lot to be said for writing new applications which are actually designed for a tablet or netbook, rather than trying to shoehorn desktop apps onto small devices with different input methods... But if you're going to write new apps, why bother writing them for win32/arm instead of simply writing them for linux?
The only advantage windows has in this area is familiarity, they would lose their traditional selling point of compatibility/lockin, if you go arm you will need new apps regardless and if people have learned anything over the past 15 years they should take this chance to break free of the lock-in rather than getting caught up in another round.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Windows Phone 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
Worse than fragmentation is proves what I've been saying (and getting modded "troll" for it) that Microsoft is a Windows company, not a technology company. Everything they do is trying to leverage Windows. Windows on ARM may just be the stupidest thing they've done. It is as if to say "Me Too On Arm" just to say it.
Someone needs to fire the board, the top managers and start making some real gutsy calls on direction of the company, or else Apple will eat them for lunch as they keep chasing what Apple and Google have already done.
I'm kind of feeling sorry for the once great giant these days. They just can't seem to get things right.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
It is the same situation as MONO. You can write an app that will run on .NET in Windows and Mono in Linux. Write once and compile for each platform. The problem is it is all to easy to call stuff that wont port. The stark and bleak reality is any .NET app written for win32 or win64 will need major work to run on MONO or .NET-ARM.
As a stupid example. I had to take a Visual Basic programming course. I had to put some output into a multi-line textbox. If I had a choice I would have used a more advanced table control so I could break up the output into columns. Instead, I turned back to my old win32 api programming days and placed a few tab stops into the textbox. This is done with a win32api call, once that is done, the program is non-portable. Any nontrivial app will require some retooling unless it was written from the ground up to be portable.
Without a plethora of win32 apps, Win-ARM will have issues. Even then those apps are not designed for the iPad sized tablet or netbook. Dialog are to large, icons not sized for a touch display. If you Look at WM7 as well as all earlier WinCE stuff, this is not looking good for Microsoft.
after running Win7 on a new laptop (Score:2, Interesting)