
Windows 8 to introduce ARM; First Public Demonstration Expected This Week - andre3k1
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/01/windows-on-arm-more-details.html
======
jsz0
This could be a good opportunity for Microsoft to dump a ton of legacy baggage
in Windows 8. Windows developers will ultimately need to support ARM/x86 and
the path of least resistance is going to be Microsoft's latest & greatest
framework. Great time to draw a line in the sand and reinvent Windows.
Microsoft can send the message to developers that if you want your app to run
on Windows 8 you need to stop using that Windows 3.1 style font selection
dialog box, stop barfing files all over random spots of the file system, stop
using crappy early 90's style installers, etc.

~~~
kes
This might be a stupid question, but that's exactly like the OSX/OS9 switch,
right?

~~~
wtallis
It would be more like the OS 9 -> OS X switch happening at the same time as
the PPC -> Intel transition, but without the old CPU architecture being
totally deprecated.

Apple's notable for having made 3 major transitions (68k to PPC, MacOS to OS
X, and PPC to Intel), but all three of those were as minimal as they could be
given the circumstances. The architecture transitions were made with almost
completely transparent binary compatibility and minimal changes needed for
source code, while the source-incompatible OS/API change was made as gradual
as possible with a long grace period (which a few companies chose to exploit
rather than update their apps before it was too late).

Windows as a system is clearly not clean enough at the moment to easily switch
architectures without needing a lot of complex compatibility stuff thrown in.
If they try to force developers off old APIs and introduce a new architecture,
that new architecture will be a second class citizen and will need a lot of
external factors to give it traction.

~~~
brudgers
> _"Windows as a system is clearly not clean enough at the moment to easily
> switch architectures without needing a lot of complex compatibility stuff
> thrown in."_

Windows currently runs on two radically different architectures...x86/x64 and
Itanium. It has for more than nine years.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Architecture>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_editions#Windows_XP_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_editions#Windows_XP_64-Bit_Edition)

~~~
steveb
It may run on Itanium, but it doesn't support more than a fraction of the x86
server functionality.

[http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc772344(WS.10).a...](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc772344\(WS.10\).aspx)

I don't see how Microsoft will ever shed the x86 legacy in Windows. Intel
would have an interest in killing off arm-based laptops with aggressive
pricing, and there really isn't any history of Windows developers rebuilding
apps to support other chip architectures.

~~~
wtallis
Wow, that's a sad list. It looks like they didn't even port half of the server
components to the Itanium, and they warn you not to use .NET for anything
performance-sensitive. The closest thing they've got to a modern, portable
environment and their first port of it is so embarrassingly slow that they
have to warn you on the feature list. Even worse, their modern GUI APIs (WPF)
weren't ported at all, so even simple .NET apps are at risk of not working due
to not using an archaic GUI toolkit.

Clearly the NT kernel is quite portable. There's plenty of evidence of that
(MIPS, PPC, Alpha, IA-64... ). But there's no evidence that even the most
modern and supposedly portable components of the desktop experience are
actually at all portable. Hardly any of it has (as far as we know) actually
been ported.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
There's no reason all of that stuff couldn't run on Itanium too, but it's a
matter of choosing what to invest in; OS releases have a huge test cost with
supporting anything, and Itanium is too small a market - ARM is different
because it's clearly consumer-based and it's here to stay. I assure you, it is
all portable.

------
6ren
The problem Microsoft faces is that the primary selling point of Windows is
the third-party software... which won't run on ARM.

Solutions: all providers recompile for ARM (unmanageable). W8 emulates x86
(slow). W8 does very tricky JIT recompilation of x86 to ARM, as if it were a
VM (amazing).

Launching _.Net_ a few years back means that at least all software written for
that is trivially retargeted. A clever (or serendipitous?) leveraging of its
platform.

Apple tackled this problem differently: by banning alternative software
platforms from iPhone/iPad, they rapidly created a substantial 3rd party
software base of native apps from nothing.

~~~
erik
I believe that DEC (Compaq?) shipped very capable JIT recompilation of x86 to
Alpha a long time ago. They were trying to get past the hurdle of Intel's lock
in. It didn't work.

~~~
bbgm
And SGI tried something similar on their MIPS processors. That didn't work
either

~~~
wazoox
Actually they shipped some of their workstations with softwindows 95 (which in
the meanwhile, became Virtual PC, then was bought by Microsoft). It was close
to usable on really fast machines :)

------
ssp
One thing both Google and Apple might be getting wrong is if they won't let
developers make serious money. They are both encouraging very low prices like
$.99 for "apps", which might mean that a lot of interesting software will
never be written for those systems.

Microsoft always allowed and encouraged application developers to make money
from their Windows applications, even though a "cheap applications means we
can sell more Windows" strategy would naively seem to make sense.

If I had to pick an OS winner, Android is still the one I would bet on, but
with this move, Windows definitely seems to me like a more credible contender.

Max Klein wrote about this at one point, but he apparently deleted it. The
post is cached here:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_6hkDvC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_6hkDvCzHMYJ:maxkle.in/why-
im-investing-in-windows-phone-and-skippin/)

~~~
masklinn
> They are both encouraging very low prices like $.99 for "apps"

Please do explain how. Apple at least (I don't know about the Marketplace,
apart from it not being available to a number of developers) has a wide range
of available prices, there are GPS software for far north of $100 apiece, and
a number of other applications which definitely aren't $.99.

Even in games, "big hits" are generally closer to $10 (when not on sale) than
$1 (and outlining this kind of stuff is very much why Apple introduced a third
"tops" list in the appstore). And please also explain how Microsoft would
solve a race to the bottom which is the combination of users being cheap fucks
and developers still wanting those users.

> Max Klein wrote about this at one point, but he apparently deleted it. The
> post is cached here:
> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_6hkDvC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_6hkDvC…)

Doesn't say anything about iOS, and completely handwaves away the problem for
Microsoft (apparently, microsoft "cares that he's making money" and will
moneyhat him or something). Garbage.

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dstein
This feels awfully late given that Windows CE has supported ARM since 1996. I
never understood why Microsoft was reluctant to get a full-blown XP running on
ARM (minus the x86 & DOS hamstrings). Windows CE always felt like a precursor
to something that Microsoft didn't have the vision to follow through with.

~~~
rbanffy
> I never understood why Microsoft was reluctant to get a full-blown XP
> running on ARM

Because they tried (and failed to gain traction) before with MIPS, PowerPC,
Alpha and Itanium.

~~~
razzmataz
NT originally ran on MIPS, before it ever ran on 386.

~~~
rbanffy
And that's why there never was an Office for MIPS...

~~~
razzmataz
Actually, the reason for Office never being ported came down to two things:
different byte order and lots of x86 assembly mixed in the office code for
performance reasons. Office was never 'portable'.

------
pohl
I wonder if this is why Intel unveiled Sandy Bridge a few days early.

------
sliverstorm
Anyone have insight on whether this is Microsoft gunning at mobile platforms,
or loosing faith in the dominance of x86?

~~~
rbanffy
You can smell their fear.

As long as I can buy an ARM-based netbook subsidized by crapware/adware on
Windows 8 and replace the thing with a decent OS, I'll be happy.

Sadly, I won't be able to brag about using a Windows-proof computer anymore...

Now, seriously, Windows failed once on RISC platforms because software vendors
were not interested in supporting them. Can an ARM-based Windows desktop
function when the only software it runs is Windows? And, perhaps, Office?
Would a Windows user live without 3rd-party software? Would all 3rd-parties
rush to support Windows on ARM? I doubt it.

And, of course, it reminds me of FUD maneuvers of the past, like Windows for
Pen Computing. It may well be designed to prevent people from seriously
considering moving to Android (or classic Linux) on ARM-based platforms
"because Windows 8 will support ARM and is just around the corner". Seen it
before. And it worked, BTW.

~~~
gpjt
_Now, seriously, Windows failed once on RISC platforms because software
vendors were not interested in supporting them. Can an ARM-based Windows
desktop function when the only software it runs is Windows?_

I guess a lot depends on how much developers embrace .NET; .NET apps are
compiled to CLR bytecode which presumably could run on ARM devices just as
easily as on Intel.

~~~
maximilianburke
> I guess a lot depends on how much developers embrace .NET; .NET apps are
> compiled to CLR bytecode which presumably could run on ARM devices just as
> easily as on Intel.

The only problem I think would be with mixed assemblies, those containing both
native and managed code, which can exist for PC applications. XNA games for
example run on PowerPC (Xbox 360) and ARM (Zune/WP7) but their development is
much more constrained than PC applications.

~~~
gpjt
True, we've had to put porting our .NET app to Mono (for Mac/Linux support) on
hold because of that -- the grid component we were using had a load of native
code under the .NET layer.

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themrbluesky
Uhh. I accidentally searched reddit using this number for other posts about
it, and then I refreshed the page and the site is down.

Am I being paranoid or did I accidentally break their server?

~~~
andre3k1
Try Techmeme.

Here's the discussion on this topic: <http://techme.me/B0l1>

