

Microsoft surprises by licensing ARM to create its own chips - FluidDjango
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/23/microsoft.may.chase.apple.servers.with.arm/

======
PhrosTT
[http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ARMH](http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ARMH)

------
dman
Would be awesome if microsoft pulls an apple and unifies windows and windows
mobile under a single platform. That and porting the .net runtime to
linux/osx/bsd would mean microsoft would make the microsoft stack very
interesting all over again.

~~~
MichaelGG
Well WinPhone7 seems to be heavily pushing Silverlight and XNA, which also run
on the desktop. So there's some unification there.

As far as MS releasing a full .NET for other OSes? I can't ever see that
happening. Why would they want their army of VB/C# "enterprise" developers
being able to deploy without spending on Windows licenses?

Their support of Novell/Mono means people can still choose .NET for some
projects; probably people that might not have used .NET otherwise. But at
least the bulk of business apps developed will still need Windows (and
probably SQL Server).

~~~
dman
Low cost deployment is the new reality.

a) Without having a low cost deployment option the competiveness of microsoft
is greatly reduced in the big data market. b) It might take Microsoft 3-4
years to work out the business model but having a portable .net framework with
low / zero cost deployment would make apps written in .net viable in sectors
where they dont have a chance currently - embedded , big data. c) The few
startup people ive talked to have all worried about "theoretical portability",
ie they might never use the portability but they would like the programs to
work on different OS's. d) OSX actually benefits greatly from its unixy
structural similarity to linux / bsd. Most developers I see here in NYC
develop on osx and deploy on linux (linode, heroku etc) e) While Mono is a
great project, having a blessed / direct version of .net would reduce the
business risk in the mind of customers.

------
pietrofmaggi
I hope not, but it looks like this might be a case of Apple-envy.

Microsoft was evaluating ARM for server usage, but do they need to build the
SoC them self?

IIRC The last time they build some complex chips the result was far from
perfect [http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4077187/The-truth-
ab...](http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4077187/The-truth-about-last-
year-s-Xbox-360-recall)

~~~
rbanffy
Why would an ARM-based Windows server be desirable? What role would it take?
Web server? Print server? File server? "SQL Server Enterprise ARM-cluster
edition"? It doesn't add up.

Xbox-style devices would sound more likely. The Xbox360 was successful in
showing developers can make a bunch of low-performance cores perform
adequately in games. I think a multi-core ARM coupled to a decent GPU would be
quite a nice gaming platform.

~~~
adbge
An ARM-based Windows server would be desirable for anyone who is already using
a Windows server and wants to maximize their performance per watt.

I'm not sure if ARM is powerful enough to support a next generation console
platform. The current Xbox 360 has 3 cores clocked at 3.2 GHz supporting two
threads per core, while the most powerful ARM processor, ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore,
has 4 cores that can each be clocked to "up to 1 GHz". Processors are a lot
more complicated than just clock speed, of course, but I think it's readily
apparent that ARM is less powerful than the current Xenon processor in the
360. Perhaps Microsoft could drop in several ARM processors or rely more
heavily on the GPU.

I think it's more likely that this is a move to create a powerful in house ARM
chip to use in their Zune HD and maybe for a to-be-announced mobile platform.

~~~
rbanffy
> anyone who is already using a Windows server

The only commonality is Windows itself. Windows NT on RISC processors has
proved to be limiting in that almost no software was available to platforms
other than Intel. This means the only functions a Windows on ARM server would
be able to handle would be those of Windows itself and the software Microsoft
choses to port.

It's kind of a copycat reflex. Apple is investing a lot in ARM, porting a big
chunk of their OS to it, so Microsoft is convinced it must do the same,
regardless of having a viable product.

------
VengefulCynic
Checking over at <https://careers.microsoft.com/> there's no sudden flurry of
hardware or low-level software engineering job postings to go with this
announcement. Of course, it's not like M$ has a shortage of those types
between their Xbox and Zune platforms.

------
illumin8
This is for Windows phone 7 - and possibly a tablet device. Microsoft probably
realized that it's a bad idea to shoehorn Windows 7 into an x86 tablet and is
going to try to scale Windows Phone 7 up to a tablet.

Everyone else can play "me too" and copy Apple...

~~~
rbanffy
As someone else said before, we should expect mock-ups and movies showing this
bright future soon. Real products may take a while. Successful products...
well... I wouldn't hold my breath.

------
wlievens
... and ARM's stock raises with another 15 percent. Compare it to 12 months
ago and say "ooooh".

------
napierzaza
Is MS only 2 years behind on this? Usually they're around 4 aren't they? I
imagine we'll see some mock ups anytime soon. Take that iPad/iPhone.

------
marze
No surprise. Microsoft usually does everything Apple does, a few years delayed
and not as well.

