I can't believe they think a Windows version is pre-requisite to success in penetrating the server market
Taking websites as an example : The clear leader amongst web servers used by the million busiest websites is Apache with a 66% share. It has a 47% lead over its closest competitor, Microsoft-IIS, much greater than on the web as a whole.
Not to mention, an ARM edition of Windows wouldn't be much good without either (1) a binary translator or (2) everyone rewriting their software to run on ARM. The OS does not exist in a vacuum.
or (3) everyone making source available? Could a more heterogeneous processor market drive people towards open source purely from the practical aspect of being able to built the right version to run on their kit?
Not as an internet server, but many companies can't get rid of x86 Windows servers because they have (better: think they have) to run Windows applications like Exchange or SQL Server.
Is the 4 core limit really an issue? Really big deployments, where they are most sensitive to performance per watt, are finding it more cost effective to go with fewer cores per server because it gives a more optimal balance between processing power and memory bandwidth. Look at those google compute containers, each node has pretty modest specs.
Taking websites as an example : The clear leader amongst web servers used by the million busiest websites is Apache with a 66% share. It has a 47% lead over its closest competitor, Microsoft-IIS, much greater than on the web as a whole.
netcraft confirms it - http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/03/15/march_2009_web_...