If Windows 10 on ARM Works Properly, It Will Be Boring
- Paul Thurrott
- Jun 02, 2017
-
121
While there’s understandably been a lot of excitement around Microsoft bringing full Windows 10 to the ARM platform, there’s also not much to say about this project. If it works properly, it will just be Windows 10.
As you may recall, Microsoft announced Windows 10 on ARM last December at WinHEC, but it’s been pretty quiet it ever since.
Windows 10 on ARM was not featured at all during Build 2017, for example, though Microsoft released a quickie pre-recorded video to silence the questions. And then this past week, Microsoft revealed an “Always-Connected PC” initiative, which includes ARM systems as well as those based on the traditional Intel x86 platform.
This week, Qualcomm piped up and discussed Windows 10 on ARM during Computex. The company literally provided no new information, but that’s because there is nothing to say: Windows 10 on ARM is just Windows 10. There will be Home, Pro, and Enterprise versions, just like on Intel.
Microsoft’s Terry Myerson did discuss how Always-Connected PCs would interface with the built-in eSIM in such systems at Computex too. But again, that isn’t just for ARM, it’s coming to x86 PCs too.
If you’re really bored, you can watch an extended demo of Windows 10 running on ARM. That, again, shows off nothing new at all.
And that, folks, is the point.
If Windows 10 on ARM works, and I think it will, the average user won’t see any difference between that product and Windows on x86. The systems could potentially be smaller and lighter, and get great battery life, and they will include integrated cellular data capabilities. But that’s why someone might choose such a system: For the benefits, not for the underlying architecture.
Windows 10 on ARM probably won’t work well for high-end tasks that require powerful Intel hardware like video editing, game playing, and the like. But then, neither will most thin and light PCs, regardless of the architecture.
Put simply, Windows 10 on ARM will be successful if it’s boring. If there is literally nothing to say, or at least anything unique. If this thing arrives and just works, Qualcomm and Microsoft win. That’s everything.
So here’s to boring. I hope it just works.
Tagged with
Conversation 121 comments
-
skane2600
<p>I think boring is the best case scenario for Windows on ARM. Will it run all legacy applications with reasonable performance? We don't know. Will the devices be smaller, lighter, with better battery life? We don't know.</p><p><br></p><p>Having been involved with some sketchy demos in the electronic toy industry years ago, I don't take such things at face value.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121761"><em>In reply to rameshthanikodi:</em></a></blockquote><p>Wow, your straw man is so specific.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121773"><em>In reply to hometoy:</em></a></blockquote><p>Most Chromebooks are under $300 and the primary market for them is education where cellular connectivity doesn't add value. So I don't really see always-connected ARM PCs being a direct competitor to Chromebooks. </p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121961"><em>In reply to normcf:</em></a></blockquote><p>It's not as if the only choice is Windows S and Chromebooks. I suspect most business will continue to use full Windows as their primary desktop PCs. As I've said before, adding Android apps to Chromebooks suggests that the cloud-based philosophy that is the fundamental principle behind Chromebooks isn't cutting it. Unfortunately, Android apps are not good replacements for Win32 programs. </p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122037"><em>In reply to Jeremy Petzold:</em></a></blockquote><p>Samsung already makes Intel based Windows laptops so apparently they've achieved Intel design competency too. If we imagine some other company jumping into PC making for the first time using ARM, should we really expect an increase in Windows sales? Is there currently a dearth of PC options that an ARM-based PC would remedy?</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121779"><em>In reply to SvenJ:</em></a></blockquote><p>The problem with all these schemes IMO, is that they are strictly tethered experiences, rather than mobile ones. You really need a mouse and keyboard, not just a monitor to duplicate the desktop experience. If you already own a PC you don't need your phone to be a CPU unit and if you don't, you have to go out and buy peripherals. A portable device always has additional constraints over a desktop device: size, weight, power. If such a phone were under $200, then maybe it could compete, but I doubt that we'd see such a low price.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121955"><em>In reply to SvenJ:</em></a></blockquote><p>So your bring along all these separate pieces and put them in checked baggage and assemble them later so you can avoid using an integrated device like a laptop that you could actually use while you are commuting? We all have our own idiosyncratic preferences but I don't think this scenario makes any sense for most people.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122036"><em>In reply to Jeremy Petzold:</em></a></blockquote><p>So what? Assuming the mess of combining storage between Android and Windows could be handled, you'd still be unable to run Windows in a mobile fashion. It would be just like running a compact desktop PC at home except a little smaller, a little less powerful, and you'd have to hook it up every time you came home.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122074"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>I'm not an expert, but I think even Win32 programs "converted" through the desktop bridge have limitations they didn't have as normal Win32 programs. I would think the limitations on UWP apps would be even greater.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122025"><em>In reply to Dont Fear the Future:</em></a></blockquote><p>The relevant benchmark for the success of a WoA device IMO would be how its sales compare with Windows on Intel. The combined percentages of the Mac and Linux (non-server) are already a lot smaller than Windows.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122103"><em>In reply to Dont Fear the Future:</em></a></blockquote><p>We'll have to see when real devices are available but at present I note that entry level Windows laptops are no more expensive than entry level Chromebooks despite the latter using ARM chips instead of Intel. </p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122116"><em>In reply to Dont Fear the Future:</em></a></blockquote><p>It's the applications that MS doesn't control which will determine the viability of WoA. I was around during the "almost" compatible PC clones era and there's no longer any patience for less than 100% compatiblity. The ARM chips will have to be significantly faster than their Intel counterparts to overcome the inevitable reduction in speed that any emulation scheme will create. The ARM chips that MS has been talking about are high-end so WoA computers are likely to be medium to high cost devices.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121991"><em>In reply to BoItmanLives:</em></a></blockquote><p>I'm skeptical of the performance of WoA too, but I'd estimate that probably only .1% off all Win32 apps have background processes to check for updates.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122198"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>How many users there are of products that check for updates doesn't impact my PC, yours or anyone elses. It only matters what is running on our own machines. </p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122032"><em>In reply to Jeremy Petzold:</em></a></blockquote><p>Changing OS types isn't really a consumer activity and with the exception of PCs isn't usually even allowed without jailbreaking (and even that doesn't always work). When you buy a device like a smartphone the hardware and software are integrated together, the fact that a Windows Phone and Android phone both use an ARM processor doesn't mean you can just swap OS's on them.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122045"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>Yes, there's a long history of fake demos. It's only when you have a device in hand and you use it awhile do you find out what its capability and performance is. The fact that the demos where 7 months ago and there's still no specific products announced suggests that they aren't even done yet. They might be taking a WINE-like approach: finding out which major applications don't work and kludging in work-arounds (Just speculation and I know WINE uses a different technical approach).</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121911"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>Well, 28 years is a lifetime in the microprocessor world.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#121952"><em>In reply to shanneykar:</em></a></blockquote><p>There's a difference between a dream and a fantasy. There's never going to be a "PC in your pocket". A real PC in your pocket would mean you could take the device out of your pocket and somehow you'd have a full size keyboard, reasonable size monitor and perhaps a mouse running a full desktop OS. If a PC in your pocket is just a device that you can hook up to peripherals when you are tethered at home or the office, we've had those for years. Laptops are the true PC in your briefcase and that's about as small as you can go without significantly compromising the experience.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122042"><em>In reply to Daekar:</em></a></blockquote><p>Well, anyone who comments on the merits of on an unreleased product is just speculating. It's no more "ignorant" to say that the product won't succeed as it is to say it's "doable".</p>
-
Locust Infested Orchard Inc.
<blockquote><a href="#122073"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><blockquote><em>Quote: "Im very curios whether ARM can run binaries meant for Intel/AMD via
emulation using less battery power than running the same binaries on
Intel/AMD. If so, Intel and AMD would be in a very, very bad place."</em></blockquote><p><strong><span style="color:purple">With the full breath of Sky Lake CPUs released (HEDT LCC [from low core count dies] due towards the end of June, but HCC [from high core count dies] some time in 2018, according to latest reports, amid some disappointment), and with the consumer chips of Kaby Lake released, the next installment, the eight generation Core, Coffee Lake, is expected to improve performance up to 30% for the Y series mobile chips, slated for release in December.‡</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">With two major announcements in as many months by Intel's competitors, Threadripper and EPYC from AMD, and ARM chips having demonstrated executing Windows 10 Pro x64, Intel has suddenly been jolted with 240V up their hind quarters.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">Intel are rightly feeling the heat brought upon by their arrogant complacency. Intel are sure to make Coffee Lake a substantial upgrade in performance to ensure it stays relevant and ahead of the other silicon chip foundries (e.g., TSMC, Samsung, etc) for its own survival.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">Based on the encroaching competition, I envisage Intel will be able to challenge ARM and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8xx in both performance and critically power consumption, at the earliest, towards late 2018 and 2019.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">[With the forthcoming release of Coffee Lake, I suspect Microsoft will refresh its Surface Pro line, in or around Q3-Q4 2018. The just released Surface Pro 5 (without the moniker 5) was therefore in my view a stop-gap measure, a year and a bit prior to the real worthy successor of the Surface Pro 4.]</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">This would allow for Microsoft's vision of an always-connected PC with telephony/cellular features in-built, in a form factor not currently addressed by today's run-of-the-mill cellular phones/phablets, becoming available on both architectures, ARM and x86-64.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">So it shall become apparent that the fourth wave of the cellular/mobile revolution shall be instigated by Microsoft. Time to bid farewell to Google's Lagdroid and Apple's iOS.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">[The first wave was dominated by PDAs, notably executing Palm OS, Symbian, and WinCE. The second wave was dominated by Pocket PC/Windows Mobile (up to 6.5),
Blackberry OS. The third wave was dominated by iOS and Android].</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">‡</span></strong> Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-eighth-generation-core-i7-coffee-lake,34578.html</p> -
Locust Infested Orchard Inc.
<p><strong><span style="color:purple">To be so dismissive of Windows-on-ARM, as so many have done in the comments below as has Paul Thurrott himself (who certainly ought to know better, and in most likelihood does, but has been fiendishly courted by Google by way of its Nexus/Pixel XL and Android), is staggeringly contemptuous and not being mindful that to be able for Microsoft to execute x86 applications on an always-connected small factor device with cellular capabilities and twelve-hour plus battery life, is the holy grail of productive computing on-the-go.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">The video that is hyperlinked in Paul's piece shows Windows along with some elementary applications (7-Zip and Microsoft Office, and in a previously released video back in December 2016, Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 too) executing without issue on an ARM chip. For those who are so engrained with their enduring blinkered love for iOS and Android, one cannot see anything to get the pulse racing, hence the </span><strong style="color: purple;"><span style="color:purple">reference to "boring" in the </span></strong><span style="color:purple">article's headline.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">If and when a 6.2" device running Windows-on-ARM, e.g., Samsung Galaxy 8 Plus is made available (which most certainly is not beyond the realm of impossibility as it possesses the critical Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC), that would most certainly get eyeballs rolling and ruffle much more than a few feathers in both the Android and iOS camp.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">With various patents Microsoft has been granted in relation to foldable mobile-like devices, the family of Surface devices appear to have several new little siblings in its wake not before long.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">With Microsoft working on a unified adaptive shell to span across all Windows devices of varying sizes, Composable Shell or "CSHELL" as it is referred to internally, it will be able to scale in real-time between all types of devices. A combination of CSHELL, the glorious live tiles, the newly introduced Fluent Design System, and not forgetting Continuum, will together set to astound, mesmerize, and silence all critics of both Microsoft and Windows.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:purple">For Microsoft enduring endeavors, finally, it will be the case of, he who laughs last, laughs longest.</span></strong></p><p><strong style="color: purple;"><span class="ql-cursor"></span></strong><strong><span style="color:red">Computex 2017</span> – <span style="color:green">Reference device with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 executing Windows 10 Pro x64</span></strong></p><p><img src="http://i.imagebanana.com/img/ewsl3v9l/Windows10Prox64onSnapdragon835Ref.jpg"></p><p><strong><strong><strong><span style="color:purple">Source:</span></strong></strong> https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/31/qualcomm-snapdragon-windows-always-connected-pc/</strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:red">Computex 2017</span> – <span style="color:green">Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 executing Windows 10 Pro x64 Demonstrations</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:blue">(1)</span> </strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oSXUDKpkbx4" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color:black">https://www.youtube.com/embed/oSXUDKpkbx4</span></strong></a></p><p><strong><span style="color:blue">(2)</span> </strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YR39vRMmelo" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color:black">https://www.youtube.com/embed/YR39vRMmelo</span></strong></a></p><p><br></p><p><strong style="color: black;"><span class="ql-cursor"></span></strong><strong><span style="color:red">Microsoft Build 2017 & National Retail Federation (NRF) 2017</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:green">Windows 10 IOT Enterprise (formerly known as Windows Embedded) running on a 6.3" Intel Cherry Trail Atom CPU device that notably has 4G LTE. This device is a mobile point-of-sale (PoS) device, proving Intel can, if they really desire, stuff smartphones with their chips.</span></strong></p><p><img src="http://i.imagebanana.com/img/yqzlsq66/Windows10IOTEntonIntelCherryTrail.jpg"></p><p><strong><strong><span style="color:purple">Source:</span></strong> https://www.windowscentral.com/checout-m-runs-windows-10-iot/</strong></p><p><strong><span style="color:blue">(3)</span> </strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7oYehR3yIgQ" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color:black">https://www.youtube.com/embed/7oYehR3yIgQ</span></strong></a></p><p><br></p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122207"><em>In reply to Locust Infested Orchard Inc.:</em></a></blockquote><p> One should never evaluate a product simply based on a few demos, they are all too easy to manipulate. At best Windows on ARM would increase battery life although we have no proof that it will since there are no devices yet to evaluate. If it does, it will hardly elevate what we already have to "holy grail of productive computing on-the-go". A 6.2" phone device wouldn't even be in the running for such a title given its inappropriate ergonomics for running legacy apps. </p><p><br></p><p>I think the enthusiasm for Windows on ARM is left over from a time when some people believed (perhaps naively) that if only full Windows could be ported to ARM somehow Windows Phones would succeed. But the problems aren't purely technical but also based on the configuration of the human body (The size of our hands, the constraints on what we can comfortably carry, the limits on how small text can be and still be read by our eyes, etc)</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122352"><em>In reply to Jorge Garcia:</em></a></blockquote><p>iOS and Android would have the same problem if they actually had serious productivity applications. It's not the OS that drives what is a viable size, it's the ergonomics.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122361"><em>In reply to Jorge Garcia:</em></a></blockquote><p>If the "criteria" is being connected to keyboard, mouse, and monitor through a docking station, it's likely going to be DOA. As far as the iPad Pro is concerned, it already represents a retreat from being a tablet toward being more like a laptop. It would be silly for Apple to "MacOSize" iOS to be a full featured OS since it won't run legacy programs. Apple's laptop and iMac form-factors are never going to be replaced by iPads simply because the former form-factors are just too useful. Outside of consuming content, social networking etc, tablets are niche devices and always will be.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#122351"><em>In reply to Jorge Garcia:</em></a></blockquote><p>Project fuchsia's purpose is still a bit vague and it might eventually find itself joining a long line of Google abandonware. Wikipedia describes it as RTOS, which is an OS type not typically associated with a general purpose computer. </p><p><br></p><p>Then again Wikipedia could be wrong. It describes two kinds of RTOS, hard and soft. In the old days we'd call what is now described as hard Real-Time-Operating Systems just Real-Time-Operating Systems and what is now called soft Real-Time-Operating Systems as just Non-Real-Time-Operating Systems. But I guess being an RTOS sounds cool so everybody wants the label. It's the OS equivalent to "All hat, no cattle".</p>
![http://i.imagebanana.com/img/ewsl3v9l/Windows10Prox64onSnapdragon835Ref.jpg"></p><p><strong><strong><strong><span](http://i.imagebanana.com/img/ewsl3v9l/Windows10Prox64onSnapdragon835Ref.jpg"></p><p><strong><strong><strong><span){kind=link}
![http://i.imagebanana.com/img/yqzlsq66/Windows10IOTEntonIntelCherryTrail.jpg"></p><p><strong><strong><span](http://i.imagebanana.com/img/yqzlsq66/Windows10IOTEntonIntelCherryTrail.jpg"></p><p><strong><strong><span){kind=link}