Microsoft has no choice.
Arm has been dominating the biggest growing market mobile (everything from phones to tablets and now). Intel is fighting a three front war now. While one battlefront is the mobile market where ARM essentially is the only choice, another battlefront is dominated by Nvidia with the processors for graphics and ML/AI. If that wasn’t bad enough, AMD is attacking hard on Intel’s home arena: PC CPUs.
When Apple dropped Intel for M1 they showed that Arm wasn’t just some niche processor technology for less powerful devices, such as mobile devices.
So not only is AMD taking market shares in the PC market, ARM is on the rise and doesn’t look very good for Intel right now.
Is Intel really capable of innovating their way out of their current path to extinction?
You are forgetting cloud computing - all my workloads have moved to Graviton or will do very shortly.
Shortly as in?
Next month
Which run of the mill consumers who choose to buy a these understand what ARM even is?
For most consumers it doesn’t matter. What will is “Why does program X run so slow when program Y is fast?”. That can be solved with marketing, like calling the ARM version of Windows “Windows M 11” or something like that. Programs optimized for “Windows 11 M” will run faster and older windows 11 programs will run, but slower. Explaining that will be key to whether Arm windows will succeed.
Most users though use a small subset of programs. Like web browser, email, light office and some media consumption. Should work well enough for them.
Lol…wut? Really? So few people bought Windows-RT that they think no one noticed.
How does this affect gaming? I don’t know much about this subject, but my understanding is that games don’t run well on ARM processors unless the game is made to support it natively right?
Lol. Microsoft will never beat apple when in comes to how well their system runs on ARM hardware. simply because Apple has 3 chips to support that they know perfectly. Microsoft Windows would need to support whatever ARM chip comes out which will be an overgrowing number. This fact alone makes it extremely hard.
On the other hand Microsoft has already won in some way. Even with Apple silicon, Apple computers are still way less used then Windows PCs. So it’s not like windows is the underdog here. They are only fighting to stay in their monopoly.
The primary reason for people to use windows is still gaming and specialized software like CAD. Windows on ARM will not be used by anyone unless AAA games or AutoCAD software is build for ARM and Nvidia and AMD GPUs can be easily coupled with it.
I don’t see this coming at all. The only area where cheap, low power ARM PCs with windows would make sense, Linux or ChromeOS would be the way better and cheaper option. I don’t see any market for high performy ARM PCs with windows on them until demanding software and hardware supports it.
Microsoft Windows would need to support whatever ARM chip comes out which will be an overgrowing number.
Or they can do with producing, say, HaloPhones and HaloPads and only supporting what’s used in them.
Windows on ARM will not be used by anyone unless AAA games or AutoCAD software is build for ARM and Nvidia and AMD GPUs can be easily coupled with it.
I suspect this is like weapons trade or big commercial integrations. There will be ARM versions of those when there will be a strategy of MS and its partners profiting from it. Same with hardware.
It’s not that something happening naturally didn’t happen, it’s that there’s no such strategy to turn in that direction. This market is so oligopolized that it even looks this way.
Microsoft will never beat apple when in comes to how well their system runs on ARM hardware
I dunno - cellular networking, touch screen, detachable keyboard… Apple is pretty easy to beat if you ask me. All Microsoft needs is an ARM chip that is “fast enough” and also has competitive battery life. Something Intel can’t deliver on.
Windows on ARM will not be used by anyone unless AAA games or AutoCAD software is build for ARM
That’s not how the transition went on a Mac. Software compiled for Intel is generally faster on ARM than it ever was on Intel Macs… not because the CPU is faster (it’s not), but rather Apple Silicon Macs have faster SSDs, faster RAM, more L2/L3 cache, etc. Those aren’t proprietary secrets, they’re just expensive. Anyone can do the same. Intel has caught up but only on their expensive desktop processors. If Qualcomm can do it on with a reasonably priced laptop chipset, that could be pretty special.
Games aren’t limited by compute performance, they’re mostly limited by how fast textures can be read. And it’s the same with AutoCAD.
Also you missed a massive use case - browsing the web. Chrome/etc is already optimised for ARM, since nobody uses x86 on a smartphone.
Benchmarks or real applications?
Bridging the gap with Rosetta was a huge part of why Apple Silicon worked, and Windows is way more reliant on closed source legacy software than Mac is.
I’m still waiting for ARM compatible drivers for the Dymo label printers we use. It’s been 4 years now.
Fuuuuuuuck Dymo.
It would be nice to have the option of buying a printer which just accepts PostScript via ulpt. I mean, some Brother models do, I even had one working before it melted (don’t ask me how).
Uhhhm, why? I’m genuinely curious, all my printers failed mechanically
I don’t remember really. I possibly even wasn’t there
