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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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

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