ARM hopes to take 50 percent of the mobile PC market by 2015 | Hacker News Reader

ARM hopes to take 50 percent of the mobile PC market by 2015

engadget.com

12 pointsnextparadigms22 comments

If we get a 50/50 split between x86 and ARM in the Windows 8 space, I expect a lot of software being developed targeting not native ISAs, but the CLR. Considering that, I wonder what would be Microsoft's strategy to prevent this "software bonanza" from benefiting the Mono crowd. Being able to seamlessly running Windows software on non-Windows OSs could be a major blow to Microsoft's Windows division.

IIRC Windows 8 will have an ARM version too. When you have Windows, why would you run Mono instead of .NET?

What I said is that, confronted with the choice between having separate x86 and ARM ports for Windows 8, developers may very well just target .NET and forget about the native platform.

As for why running Mono when Windows 8 is available? I am no Mono enthusiast but I run Linux on a notebook that came with Windows 7 installed. I do so because I feel Linux is a better environment for the work I do.

With Chrome OS, Android, and iOS assaulting the Windows desktop monopoly, it's probably a foregone conclusion that "Post-PC" is going to hurt for Microsoft. If Microsoft doesn't do well with Win8 on tablets, it will get ugly.

It will be interesting to watch people buying ARM-based Windows boxes and returning them because they won't run their x86 software...

Two magic words: "expectation management". They need to get the messaging and branding right clearly differentiating between x86-only software & ARM-compatible software or they'll face a nasty backlash.

Short of not calling Windows/ARM Windows at all, is there any way to do this?

Moving to an App Store model like the Mac App Store might help. It would help to make it clearer what apps are available for what version of Windows.

Very distinct logos would help too.

A fairly large chunk of people buy a computer for little more than email and web browsers, and occasional document editing.

Thus why Linux netbooks were tolerated by that segment of users.

I think people underestimate the use-cases of normal people. That's why Linux netbooks are not really popular.

Some reports claim that Linux netbook returns (to store) are 2-5x greater than Windows netbooks.

Android 3.1 is shipping with libmono.so, so .NET-based apps on Android could be a real possibility: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2538761

> Considering that, I wonder what would be Microsoft's strategy to prevent this "software bonanza" from benefiting the Mono crowd.

If I were Microsoft, I'd consider this a good thing. this just means more software that's capable of running on windows, which leads to more windows license sales.

Unless people choose to run it on other platforms.

This is entirely feasible due to the fact that at say a dual core 2ghz processor you get to the point of "good enough" processing power for most consumers. ARM is already getting very close to that. With nVidia's quad core chips coming and desktop chips coming, it's easy to see that ARM is going to hit that dual core 2ghz point.

Here is the other thing, ARM chips are cheaper, made by more manufacturers, and support multiple interesting OS's. Chrome OS, Android, iOS, Windows, WebOS, Blackberry, and so on.

So cheaper chips that are "good enough" will likely spell the end of the Wintel monopoly.

Then again, by 2015 Intel could jump back in the ARM race along with the launch of Windows 8. You just never know.

The noises coming out of Intel about ARM recently are quite ambiguous. I'd be really surprised if they weren't seriously considering using their ARM license though. There is a massive amount at stake for Intel here.

It's also completely possible to offload intensive processing applications to secondary units, GPUs, encoder/decoders etc. On larger platforms (laptops, desktops) there's even more space and power for these things.

Reminds me of computing back in the old days a la the Amiga! Tons of specialized chips to overcome the limitations of relatively weak CPUs.

The 68000 in the Amiga (or Mac, or Atari ST line) was not weak compared to the 286s of the day. The limiting factor in early Amiga history was total memory available and the fact chip RAM had to be shared between multiple chips. The first Unix machine I used had a 68000 and 20 or so terminals.

It wasn't an Apollo/Domain machine was it?

No. It could be a design licensed from HP, but I am not sure.

Now just to wish for computers that come with something simple like linux, then with easily accessible software to put iOS on it. And of course perfectly compatible hardware.

Is it just me that would want a hackintosh tablet (iPad equal) to go with a hackintosh computer (Mac Pro equal)?

Corrections: Linux isn't simple and I do actually want Apple hardware.

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