sprewell
<blockquote><a href="#253324"><em>In reply to Angusmatheson:</em></a></blockquote><p>It's not the future, it's the present. I regularly build C++ codebases on Android, as I switched from a Windows 7 ultrabook to an Android tablet as my daily driver for coding a couple years ago. I recently picked up a smartphone with the Snapdragon 835 and this thing screams!</p><p><br></p><p>Specifically, it compiles a 130 kloc C++ codebase in 1 min. 55 seconds. I tried building the exact same code on a family member's Macbook Air, equipped with the dual-core i5 5250U, and it built in 1:55 mins with the clang from Homebrew and 1:15 mins with Apple's built-in clang, which I'm guessing they optimized more. That puts the 835 at about the same strength as a mid-range core i5 released two years before it was, and likely puts the 845 about even with current core i5s. You can see why MS decided to come back to ARM now, especially since the 835 does it with much less power, ie your battery will last a lot longer.</p><p><br></p><p>If we compare sales of just top-end mobile devices that have such fast chips, Apple alone sold more devices last year than the entire mid- and low-end PC market that they're comparable to. Add in Android and high-end, non-Windows mobile devices have probably 70-80% share in that mid-range client computing space. Of course, Wintel still dominates the high-end client computing market, but that's a comparatively tiny niche, selling what, max 50 million devices a year?</p><p><br></p><p>This is not a cute experiment for Windows anymore, like RT was, it's a lifeboat. If it founders, Windows is dead. My bet is on death.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#253344"><em>In reply to jimchamplin:</em></a></blockquote><p>If the emulation works properly (still an open question at this point) no reason to waste time and money to convert anything.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#254421"><em>In reply to paul-thurrott:</em></a></blockquote><p>Reliability of applications is more a function of the developer than the OS. And are store apps running on Intel less secure than store apps running on ARM? Microsoft simply isn't going to be able to deliver the equivalent power of Win32 in a restricted environment. The original excitement over Windows on ARM was the possibility that it might resurrect MS's chances in mobile (i.e. the mythical Surface Phone). As is the case with UWP, Windows on ARM is just coasting on MS's failed expectations.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#254403"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a></blockquote><p>What's the problem for which a solution is needed? If a user wants to run native Win32 apps at full speed, they can already do that with Intel-based PCs. Microsoft will never achieve that on ARM. In the unlikely (IMO) event that a lot of users want to run store apps exclusively, they don't need an ARM-based PC to do it.</p><p><br></p><p>I can imagine a set of users that are the intersection of users who don't need or rarely need Win32 programs and those for whom battery life is critical embracing Windows on ARM (if the battery life lives up to the marketing), but I don't see this as more than a niche.</p>
sprewell
<blockquote><a href="#256101"><em>In reply to ajbrehm:</em></a></blockquote><p>We don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Maybe they're still working on x86 binary translation and the JIT and want to launch a bunch of WoA devices with 1803. Maybe Intel is delaying it, or negotiations over their x86 patents are going down to the wire.</p><p><br></p><p>I think they will put a big push behind this, but whether it actually succeeds or not will come down to how MS executes. I have zero confidence in their ability to pull off a hardware transition like this, which Gates was amazed Jobs pulled off 13 years ago for a much more closed platform.</p>