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ARM Attacks Intel's Netbook Stranglehold

Posted by Soulskill on from the there-can-be-only-several dept.

Barence writes "British chip designer ARM is launching an outright attack on Intel with the launch of a 2GHz processor aimed at everything from netbooks to servers. ARM claims the 40nm Cortex A9 MPCore processor represents a shift in strategy for the company, which has until now concentrated on low-power processors for mobile devices. In the consumer market, ARM is pitching the Cortex A9 directly against Intel's Atom, claiming the processor offers five times the power while drawing comparable amounts of energy. 'It's head and shoulders above anything Intel can deliver today,' ARM VP of marketing Eric Schom claims. However, it has one major hurdle to overcome: it doesn't support Windows. 'We've had conversations with Microsoft and you can imagine what they entail,' says Schom."

7 of 521 comments (clear)

  1. What does it support? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suppose Ubuntu Linux is just chopped liver.

    C'mon people. Wake up! There are tons of operating systems out there. Some are even better than Windows! *gasp*

  2. A compelling Linux on ARM netbook will worry MS by mikeabbott420 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linux already made MS drop their price, allwing cheap windows netbooks because of linux. It's not out of the question that a really compelling ARM netbook would scare them into ARM support. I would be surprised if they didn't have something similar to the x86 apple builds in the powerPC era. Of course windows is mainly valuable for its 3rd party software so people who buy these putative ARM/windows machines may be better off with linux anyway.

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    1. Re:A compelling Linux on ARM netbook will worry MS by Microlith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The current standard of eight hours on a XP-based netbook

      Having owned an XP netbook (aspire one) I must say that an eight-hour standard is optimistic beyond belief, and likely only possible if you leave it sitting there. The Atom processor is power hungry and once you start actually using it the battery life plummets considerably.

      ARM already has an advantage on power consumption, if they can match the Atom on performance I suspect they'll win on battery life by default.

  3. chip supports OS? Hmmm, backwards... by kharris312002 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This may be the first time I've ever heard it said that a processor doesn't support an OS... Usually it's the other way around.

  4. Re:real solution by jabjoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The iPhone is a ARM processor.....

  5. No Windows? Great! No Microsoft tax! by MoxFulder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    However, it has one major hurdle to overcome: it doesn't support Windows.

    Fuck Windows. Seriously.

    I've been unwillingly paying the Microsoft tax for TEN YEARS. All I ever do is wipe Windows and install Linux. If my new computer can't run Windows then... great!! Maybe I won't have to pay the tax.

    I'd love a low-power, high-performance ARM notebook. I'd be happy with MIPS or Loongson (Chinese MIPS clone) as well. Debian already has a full-blown ARM port and I'll bet they could get it working on an ARM netbook in a day. Ubuntu would undoubtedly be soon-to-follow.

    As a side benefit, having multiple widely-used architectures for desktop systems (x86 and ARM) would be a support nightmare for hardware companies that still keep their drivers proprietary and undocumented. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Broadcom and NVidia. This would just be another nail in the coffin for their obstructionist attitudes towards free/open-source operating systems.

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  6. The best thing about it by the_womble · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it doesn't support Windows.

    That's not a bug, its a feature.