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Next Generation of Windows To Run On ARM Chip
Hugh Pickens writes "Sharon Chan reports in the Seattle Times that at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft showed the next generation of Windows running natively on an ARM chip design, commonly used in the mobile computing world, indicating a schism with Intel, the chip maker Microsoft has worked with closely with throughout the history of Windows and the PC. The Microsoft demonstration showed Word, PowerPoint and high definition video running on a prototype ARM chipset made by Texas Instruments, Nvidia. 'It's part of our plans for the next generation of Windows,' says Steve Sinofsky, president of Windows division. 'That's all under the hood.' According to a report in the WSJ, the long-running alliance between Microsoft and Intel is coming to a day of reckoning as sales of tablets, smartphones and televisions using rival technologies take off, pushing the two technology giants to go their separate ways. The rise of smartphones and more recently, tablets, has strained the relationship as Intel's chips haven't been able to match the low power consumption of chips based on designs licensed from ARM. Intel has also thumbed its nose at Microsoft by collaborating with Microsoft archrival Google on the Chrome OS, Google's operating system that will compete with Windows in the netbook computer market. 'I think it's a deep fracture,' says venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gassee regarding relations between Microsoft and Intel."
just happens to be coming out as well.
I knew it was getting fucking cold in here.
--Satan
ARM's share price did quite well from the announcement. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12127451
They forgot the C in CES?
What about the huge catalogue of win32 applications?
If I was to believe the anti-linux trolling of the last decade or so, that's the major reason people won't ever, ever switch!
On a more serious note, I know .Net stuff stands a good chance of working fine, but there's a hell of a lot of windows stuff people use that isn't .Net and I can't see a translation engine or emulation working that great on ARM stuff.
Wikipedia tells me that .NET (and therefore managed code) is nearly 10 years old (13 February 2002)
I'm pretty sure that someone in Redmond was thinking about supporting multiple platforms when they started architecting their software compiler strategy back then. It just took their management structure 5 years to wake up to the idea.
Now people have to go in and remove all of that crud which is blocking porting their SW to a different architecture ...
DLL Hell was yesterday, tomorrow is P/Invoke hell.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Not all that surprising. Back in the day, NT ran on MIPS and Alpha and you could compile native code for both from respective versions of Visual C. That was a long time ago but all the code infrastructure to support different CPU architectures are still there. 3rd party code is a different story.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Properly written .Net apps should run unchanged (needing, at most, a recompile) on Arm. I've written apps (in the .Net 2 days) that ran on XP and CE.Net devices with just a recompile.
Best Slashdot Co
I don't see what the big deal is. Has anyone heard of Windows CE or Windows Embedded? These versions of Windows ran on non-Intel platforms, including ARM.
I know people like to bash Microsoft, but did everyone forget what Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are? They are just mobile (i.e. stripped down) versions of Windows XP. Just like these versions, I doubt that we will see any virtualization that will let you run x86 software on it. Everything will need to be recompiled, just like Windows CE.
And needs water cooling. I mean this is Windows, no? Plus, do you really think that weekly 300MB patches are going to cruise along on your cell phone network?
Windows on ARM? That doesn't matter.
Office on ARM is a million times more important - for a start, that suggests you can open your documents on another new platform without having to worry about export filters and binary compatibility. But hey, I'm afraid OpenOffice and suchlike beat you to it.
The problem with Windows on ARM is that no currently existing Windows program will run on it. It's a new architecture without binary compatibility, like Windows CE was. Sure you can port things over but you can do that anyway and few have bothered. Things like the NET framework are "supposed" to be cross-platform but you can be assured than anything vital that you have to use and that you have no control over development of (e.g. business apps) requires an x86 binary at some point, or isn't supported on ARM. So even your programs that are written in NET need to be ported (which usually means it'll never happen).
Telling people that Windows now runs on ARM is misleading - they will think that everything from Half-Life 2 to Sage should work on it without touching anything. What you mean is that there is now an official OS for ARM that looks and works a bit like Windows. Like Windows CE was. But then, what ARM? There are hundreds of ARM variations and not all of them can be catered to, so you're back to it only working on select platforms that have been especially designed for it - like, erm, Windows CE was. Can I join a domain and run my existing business apps? No? Then it's actually just the Windows *GUI* that's consistent across platforms, not the OS.
Even if the next-gen of Windows 8 can be almost identical on PC or other devices, you're then into the problem that it's not the OS that matters (and that pretty much *does* have to be changed for every hardware variation) but the applications. And "Windows on ARM" will make people think they can install Steam on it and just run everything. That's not the case and never will be.
Windows on ARM is a response to Android, to try to pretend to be as cross-platform. Same as OpenXML was a response to ODF, to try to pretend to be platform-independent. In reality, the headline will grab eyes and then the reality will disappoint. But in the meantime, you've sold a "portable Windows" license to some mobile-carrier who has to repeatedly explain that "desktop Windows" isn't the same as "mobile Windows".
It's just Windows CE. Remember trying to explain to people that Pocket Word wasn't the same as desktop Word? Same thing over again.
When I was like 8 I looked at RISC vs CISC And I was like, "Why are we doing this? RISC looks better..." RISC processing was going to change everything, and we went with CISC. 20 years later, we're going back to a prefixed RISC processor.
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Shouldn't the article read, "the Chrome OS, Google's operating system that WOULD HAVE competeD with Windows"?
Because wasn't it news here not too long ago that Google's Chrome was, in the words of Google's own Chrome devs, "dead"?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Hated you. wintel
Everyone seems to rambling on about x86 compatability and running existing Windows applications on the ARM cpu. I see this more as an admission from MS that the desktop environment is stagnant and growth will be found in the market for dedicated devices (phones, tablets, netbooks etc). I don't see that this will be about desktops at all. I see this more like Apple does with iOS and OS X. Same code base but one runs on portable devices and the other is for their desktop machines. I have not real insight but I don't see where ARM desktop machines make any sense.
Anyone remember when Windows NT ran on x86, PPC, MIPS and alpha? It was amazing how much better it ran on the Alpha hardware than any x86 machines. Maybe it'll be a step forward for them - not that I really care.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
I specifically remember Cmdr. La Forge always talking about iso-linear chips. Not once did he ever mention ARM chips. Just like Microsoft to support the wrong Next Generation systems.
I think calling this a swipe at Intel is overblown. Intel has historically sold ARM-based processors ( see the XScale at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale), although they sold-off most of their ARM business to a company called Marvell. However, Intel continued to Fab for Marvell until Marvell was able to build or rent their own Fab. I don't know the current situation, but there is a good chance that Intel still has an ARM production line running under contract for Marvell. At the bottom of the wiki article it says, "Intel still holds an ARM license even after the sale of XScale." So they can move right into the business again if they see the market justification for it.
If they intend the next windows to be available for both Intel and ARM processors, they expect the ARM-Windows to be used on tablets, smartphones, etc.
It means that they do not want translation engines and automagic emulation - noone wants to get a pile of win32 application 1-to-1 copies on a tablet platform. .NET libraries and win32 api required for porting; but the porting needs to involve changes to the UI in any case, including support for low-precision finger pointing, multitouch, physically small screens, etc. All MS needs to do for the current applications is to make the porting process reasonably cheap.
They'll supply the changes to the
Well, eliminating the code debt wrt unmanaged code, especially in the ARM port would alleviate a lot of the burden on resources. MS has been pushing in this direction for the better part of the past decade. Though it's taken a long time to get their core application suites more portable.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Microsoft has shown/announced a lot of cool stuff that will work on the "next generation of Windows". If only half of it ever made it into a shipping version of Windows, I might actually consider Windows an option.
Linux, GNU apps, and much other FLOSS have been running on ARM for years. Where were the ARM machines 2-3 years ago when we all wanted them at that time? They're still not here and likely won't be until the MS project is released, if it ever is at all. Yet another Linux advantage squandered.
Where is the device manufacturer who is willing to create quality hardware and let the community take care of the software?
You're probably trolling, but in case you're not I'd like to point out that ARM clocks up to 2.5 GHz (and Netburst taught us that mere clock speed is not the future) and is multicore.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
What? Microsoft just made the smartest decision in their corporate lifetime. Well, third-smartest, and critical to their survival.
x86 is not the only architecture out there. Itanium is a market failure, RISC is relegated to the memory of us modem-wielding veterans, is there another chip line out there I forgot? If so, irrelevant.
Windows on ARM means:
- Potential NT kernel on phones. Hey, the NT kernel isn't half bad. A single kernel everywhere eorks for Linux, just sayin'.
- Opportunity for new markets like tablets and set-top/integrated TV systems. No, an Atom-powered tablet isn't ery attractive. Power demand is the issue, and ARM seems to be the king of power demand.
- A huge developer base that may not have to learn Java or Cocoa or Objective-C after all to be rlevant in our mobile- social- oriented world.
I mean, Microsoft winning sounds evil, but we should know by now that competition is good. Apple may have to answer this, and the Linux/Android community hasn't changed their value proposition one iota. In fact, consider the appeal of buying a phone and THEN choosing the OS you want - 'WindowsARM', Android, 'OpenIOS'... Or perhaps a hypervisor and VMs running any of the three?
I like it. 2GHz dual-core DX10 phones with 2GB RAM and a uSD slot for another 128G, 4.5" AMOLED screens and 1080p HDMI out? All I need now is to find a table at the Starbucks with the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and the 21" display, and I'm rockin.
I can dream, can't I?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Imagine placing your mobile phone
My mobile phone is an Audiovox 8610 flip phone whose service for a year costs as much as a month's smartphone service.
in the docking station on top of your TV and it instantly being transformed in a full-blown desktop-capable PC functionally similar to an average PC of today.
People appear unwilling to learn to configure an operating system's DPI to account for the difference in pixel density and seating distance between a desktop PC monitor and a living room TV. What makes you think they'll be ready to do so for a smartphone?
if it *does* come down to x86/win32 apps not working on ARM machines and vice-versa, won't MS have a bit of a public education battle?
Not if Microsoft pushes this as the successor to Windows CE. Ideally it'd run CE apps in much the same way that 32-bit Windows can run Win16 apps and 64-bit Windows can run Win32 apps. It'd finally close Windows CEMeNT into one codebase.
You can develop for Windows Mobile 7 in VS and it compiles to .NET and then runs that in an Arm emulator which is running the Windows Mobile 7 OS.
If your application is 100% Pure .NET, it won't easily be portable outside a .NET environment. Unlike a C++ application, whose back-end can be shared among front-ends for each platform (see multitier and model-view-controller), a .NET application runs only on platforms with the .NET framework.
If your application uses a C++ back-end (for portability) and a .NET front-end, it won't even run. As soon as an app running on Windows Phone 7 tries to P/Invoke or otherwise execute code that isn't verifiably type-safe, it gets a security exception. C++/CLI exists, but the syntax of its verifiably type-safe subset is incompatible with standard C++.
Particularly as the drive to run Windows on ARM isn't coming from the iPad cloners
Then the best strategy for Microsoft would be to make a version of Windows that can run the existing library of Windows CE applications for Pocket PC (already ARM) and Silverlight applications for Windows Phone 7 (which are pure IL). Then Windows/ARM tablets will at least have something to run until developers of non-free x86 applications get around to porting their applications.
No games. No apps. No obscure vertical apps.
Would you say the same about Pocket PC PDAs with ARM CPUs running Windows Mobile? If so, I'd disagree. It bears repeating: Windows CE is likely where Windows for ARM will get its initial supply of applications, just like 32-bit Windows can run Win16 apps, and 64-bit Windows can run Win32 apps.
I like it. 2GHz dual-core DX10 phones with 2GB RAM and a uSD slot for another 128G, 4.5" AMOLED screens and 1080p HDMI out? All I need now is to find a table at the Starbucks with the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and the 21" display, and I'm rockin.
Don't forget the fanny pack to hold the battery that powers all this for more than an hour per charge.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Seriously, /. editors? You couldn't fix the horrid grammar and have just "has worked closely with" or "has worked with closely"?
antipaucity
"Microsoft winning sounds evil, but we should know by now that competition is good"
But therein lies the paradox. When Microsoft wins everyone else eventually loses. Microsoft isn't content with being NUMBER 1 they want to be THE ONLY ONE and then there is no competition.
History has shown us this again and again; those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
I can't believe they just announced this without any user or developer story.
It looks more like Port and Pray. It deprives MS of its most significant competitive OS advantage: Legacy Apps.
So now MS will compete on resource usage, and innovation speed with NT on ARM, against iOS/Android.
This should be really entertaining.
More interestingly then the possible battle for the survival of windows would be the death of x86. X86 is an architecture with workaround after workaround in order to remain compatible. In addition BIOS might just die too.
Finally some room for constructive change... perhaps this is exactly what Microsoft is trying to achieve?
Microsoft may have been considering this move for a while. One more reason for Windows developers to switch to .NET.
Why would we assume that Microsoft and Intel would part company? ARM out-performs Intel in terms of power consumption, but Intel out-performs ARM in terms of processing power. While it seems that Intel may wind up with a smaller portion of pie, the need for desktop computers will continue for a long time. I don't think we will be seeing these competing options "pushing the two technology giants to go their separate ways" in the near future.
There's not a single person in the world, who has a legacy consisting of a bunch of unportable ARM binaries that make Win32 calls. If their OS isn't a legacy requirement, why would anyone take Microsoft seriously? Everyone knows that all they'll ever get from Microsoft is suffering, expense, and lock-in to prevent the suffering and expense from being market forces.
That means the only possible way Microsoft will ever sell a copy of this, is to rely on their other uncompetive practice: preloads. Keep users from making choices, and you get to choose for them. This has been Microsoft's most successful strategy for avoiding the market, but OEMs can now ship fully functional OSes for a license fee of $0.00000 per copy, so why MS? This is where the lack of legacy kicks in: it's not like anyone needs Microsoft's version, so even spending a penny per copy isn't going to get the OEM even one more sale.
It's an all-around lose-lose proposition for anyone Microsoft might sell to: users or OEMs. What's left? Why do they think they're going to sell any of these? It is all about lock-in via proprietary network protocols, like MS Exchange integration or something like that? Is that all MS has left, or is there something else?
when they implemented DDC they should have had it also report the physical size/dimensions of the screen
The EDID block already includes visible image width and height in cm, but it doesn't include a sonar or lidar system to determine how far away the user is sitting. People sit 28 inches from their desktop PC monitors by the definition of a CSS pixel, but they sit farther back from TV monitors. A user sitting twice as far away needs an effective DPI twice as high to keep text readable.
Open Source apps are recompiled for ARM. It's got nothing to do with Linux. It's OSS that matters here, not OS. FireFox will be compiled for Win32-ARM, too. NVidia drivers for Linux-ARM? Don't wait on your distro developers.
Ok, I've done it myself. I've conflated power with energy. But what we're really talking about here with these "low power" devices is energy efficiency. It doesn't matter what the power consumption is if it takes forever to finish the job. You can make an ARM and an Atom use the same power consumption. The problem with the Atom is that it'll take a lot longer to finish the computation. Another facet is what a processor does with idle time. ARM's philosophy has always been to get the work done quickly and then power off, while Intel's still working on bringing their "halt" power down to a minimum.
yes, since it's windows, you can run it on 1 ghz and 768mb of ram.
seriously, why is this news? yes, naifs out there associate OS stacks with particular hardware platforms, but the people _inside_ software companies don't. msft has produced extensive app stacks for ppc before, even to some extent mips and alpha. current windows is derived through NT and NT OS/2 from a codebase that was _originally_ developed simultaneously on MIPS and x86. obviously for devices like phones and tablets, even a lot of desktops, there's no need to worry about externally-provided add-in cards and the driver complexities that introduces.
besides, who cares that much about native apps anymore? "appliancy" stuff is browser/flash/java-based. msft itself is probably the main purveyor of non-browser/flash/java stuff, and of course they can retarget their office suite, no sweat (hah).
the interesting question in this is whether there's really any reason for ARM to be more mobile-friendly - that is, what is it about the ISA or implementation that makes it _inherently_ better (if any). my suspicion is that it's mostly a matter of methodology or culture: ARM has traditionally been very parsimonious (think hybrid or high-efficiency car), and the x86 makers have traditionally been more Nascar. Intel seemed to have done Atom almost against its will or corporate culture - followons have been more power-efficient, but they hardly seem like significant, bet-the-company efforts. AMD's recent bobcat-based chips appear to be based on a modestly-tweaked version of the K8. maybe what distinguishes ARM is something simple, like a compact instruction encoding...
In fact, consider the appeal of buying a phone and THEN choosing the OS you want - 'WindowsARM', Android, 'OpenIOS'... Or perhaps a hypervisor and VMs running any of the three?
I like it.
O_O
You know what, in the big picture, I think you and the people who'd "like it" count on the fingers my hand.
Microsoft controls its OEMs through the 'discount' scheme. Any OEM that buys a bulk Windows gets a discount that is worth a significant amount compared to the profit from each machine. This discount is subject to the OEM being a 'partner' which means that, for example, every machine of a particular model must ship with Windows.
When netbooks started shipping with Linux MS (allegedly) threatened the makers with loss of discounts over all products - this may have meant millions. Of course Vista and Win7 were unsuitable for netbooks so MS had to revive XP just to stop Linux being shipped.
Now netbooks, tablets, etc are shipping with ARM and Linux. MS needs to have an ARM WindowsOS so that it can force the OEMs to stop shipping Linux.
Well, that was a jumbled mess of a post, full of assertions. I'm going to sprinkle a good amount of [citation needed] on the idea that current ARM is anywhere near current X86-64 performance and that the performance-per-clock difference is that large. Your GPR count is waaay off unless you define GPR very narrowly.
ARM will never compete with x86 in raw performance. Performance per watt, however, might be another matter.
Windows on ARM is HUGE.
Please pull your vision back from the machine code level and enjoy the 50,000' view. The critical piece of information to see in this announcement is partnerships involved. Especially with NVIDIA and Texas Instruments. Two major players in the microprocessor industry with the need and ability to succeed in a new market.
MS brings the ability to mass produce a mainstream OS. NV and TI bring the ability to mass produce complicated microprocessors. It is important to note that NV specifically has a historical relationship and prior experience doing exactly this with MS.
This is a smart move for the compaines and as consumers we will benefit from a wider range of choices at better prices.
Apple should take note and remember the lessons from the early 1990's this same scenario de-throned them during that technology shift. Apple started that revolution as well and fell out when Microsoft came up.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
So if you thought getting all your hardware to work with Vista was a pain, imagine all the devices that will need rewritten device drivers for Windows ARM?
why do all of that work when they could just download ubuntu like everyone else.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
The main reason people are still using Windows on their systems today is because of all the apps and hardware that Wintel supports. As soon as the first ARM based Windows devices come out for consumers there will be a huge amount of people complaining that there programs or drivers don't work. Even today this comes up, I've seen people not understand that Office 2007 won't work with Windows 98. All they saw on the box was that "Windows" was supported. While Microsoft will be able to get some companies to port many won't and those that do will require users to buy a new version.
Came for "Microsoft + Arm = Windows Fista", left disappointed.
While you all dash to exchage empty pleasantries and inflate your self esteem by imagining you are contributing and are important via social ntwks - a place the majority of the brains were a decade ago via technical forums and communties, your twits, and dumps (yeah your shting ice cream) are gleened and may be subjected to subpoenas via unscrupulous intel gathering communities....
I am not impressed by microdink and infuriated by win7 as dumbaz pleebs are convinced via multi-billion dollar campaigns that it is good, it is nice. The perpetual security breaches of the inflexible win7 bloat are never completely revealed and yet microlimp wants to sell additional security services.
nvidia is in no way the clear winner of any hardware architecture and do not trust them to provide a fast, clean and clear computer experience via their arm processor, or even a leg if they decided to up the ante.
The fact that there is another campaign under way to sell you more sht and drum up buzz goes to show exactly how much of an intelligent clue you have - zip
Until win can show a secure os that is not just another kitchen sink pile of crap and ntwitia can come up with a low consumption, bug free, low noise capable gpu - they can go ...