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Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

Does Windows RT offer anything other than ARM compatibility for better size/battery life? Is the whole confusing Windows RT / Windows 8 split something that could've been avoided if MS had known Intel would have these chips ready?

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I think it's a political move more than a technical one. WinRT lets MS say to Intel that Intel has to care about the tablet market and low-power processors or otherwise ARM will get a foothold in Windows (giving them easy access to the low-end of the laptop market in the next few years).

Of course, this would have worked a lot better if people cared about WinRT at all, but I'm sure that was the idea.

> WinRT lets MS say to Intel that Intel has to care about the tablet market and low-power processors

I don't think Intel needs MS to say that. The lost money on the table in the smartphone-tablet ecosystem is enough incentive!

Margins on CPUs for tablets and phones are not all that high. Intel enjoys pretty amazing margins on their desktop market, so they aren't missing too much there. They just need to keep ARM away from their bread and butter of profits, which probably can be explained by their current push to keep ARM out.

No, but tablets and smartphones are starting to affect the PC market. Desktops are dying, and laptops are stagnating.

For a lot of people, a smartphone or tablet is sufficient to meet their computing needs. Especially with ability to connect a TV and keyboard, and a number of small ARM based "mini PCs" starting to arrive.

Leverage aside, it also protects MS a bit in case x86 crashes and burns.

Precisely my thoughts. The way things are looking, by the time MS gets sizable Windows RT device sales, Intel would be beating ARM on performance/efficiency.

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