Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's ARM Strategy Part of Vapourware Pitching, Maybe Plot to Harm Linux

Doll



Summary: Microsoft is clinging onto ARM, having broken just about any other market segment -- including processors with Microsoft software embedded in them -- so as to harm and discriminate against Linux

Microsoft's management is leaving the ship very rapidly and the CEO must show that he is doing something to turn things around. We believe that Ballmer's time is running out. The problem with Windows on ARM is obvious and we explained this before. Yes, ARM will fail for Windows, for reasons that so many clever people like Robert Pogson and Bradford White have explained since December when CES rumours were spread. ISVs support is one of the key problems. Glyn Moody claims that "Windows turns up late, but no mention of the ARM stalwart Linux [in this article]: classy" (yes, the corporate press pays attention mostly to Apple and Microsoft -- a sort of false dichotomy). Even Microsoft boosters cannot make sense of it:



Microsoft's announcement yesterday at CES that its next version of Windows will run on the ARM chip architecture was the wrong message at the wrong place, said an industry analyst.

"I'm baffled," said Michael Cherry, the analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft whose specialty is Microsoft's operating systems. "I just don't get what they get from this."

Cherry was talking about the news Wednesday from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that Microsoft will support the ARM chip line, which is prominent in smartphones and most recently, Apple's iPad tablet.


As Groklaw wrote in response to it, "[i]t's baffling unless you stop and ask yourself: what runs on ARM already? Just like Microsoft tried, with some success, to kill Linux on netbooks when Linux got there first, it now offers a message - don't buy Linux on ARM, because we'll have something for you soon." Groklaw has a point here. For background, see older posts such as:



All that Microsoft achieves here is alienation from Intel/AMD. Both x86 heavyweights are already embracing MeeGo, which was demonstrated on numerous devices at CES (we supplied many links in our daily aggregations). "Microsoft Deal With ARM Seals Divorce With Intel" is how one writer summarised it:

The announcement at CES 2011 that Microsoft would deliver a full version of Windows 8 for the ARM architecture is one of the most defining moments in CES 2011, one which could change the dynamics of the technology market forever by offering a credible alternative to x86.

Microsoft became a licensee of ARM back in July 2010, only a few months after Intel joined forces with Nokia to launch its own operating system, Meego.


One reader asked the other day, "Did you catch the DRAM price crash, Roy? It's like Vista all over again."

Apparently, hardware companies too are starting to realise that Microsoft and Windows are not their friends. Profit margins go to a software company whose work is inherently abundant (yet made expensive and limited because of artificial restrictions which only really apply to hardware). To quote from IDG:

DRAM chip prices reached a one-year low on Tuesday and approached their cheapest ever due to a post-holiday oversupply. The cheap memory chips are pushing PC prices lower too, a Taiwan-based trading platform said.


The reality behind Vista 7 indicates that supply will likely outpace demand. Microsoft shares fake figures about Windows, which lead to unrealistic expectations of hardware sales.

ARM's CEO was recently interviewed at CES and here is his response to the question: "When you did start talking to Microsoft?"

East: We've been working with Microsoft for about 13 years. It would be ludicrous for me to sit here and deny that we've been trying to persuade Microsoft to do something like this for many years.


Competition between the chipmakers is especially important because it keeps them serving their customers rather than engage in price-fixing, which requires a conspiracy. As we pointed out some days ago in the daily links, Intel had begun working ever more zealously for the media conglomerates by putting unacceptable DRM in silicon. The subsequent backlash was so serious that Intel needed to come up with spin that is essentially lies, at least in part. Groklaw, for example, is no friend of Intel (partly because of the OLPC fiasco) and it caught the spin piece from Intel, wherein Intel says: "There have been stories describing Intel Insider as a ‘DRM’ technology. DRM means ‘Digital Rights Management’ and is used to control the use of digital media by controlling access, and preventing the ability to copy media such as movies."

“Competition between the chipmakers is especially important because it keeps them serving their customers rather than engage in price-fixing, which requires a conspiracy.”Watch Intel misusing the word "pirates" when claiming: "Think of it as an armoured truck carrying the movie from the Internet to your display, it keeps the data safe from pirates, but still lets you enjoy your legally acquired movie in the best possible quality. This technology is built into the new Intel chips."

As Groklaw put it when responding to the claim above: "So it controls access. Check. What about preventing copying? If it's not DRM, can I make copies after I enjoy my legally acquired movie? If not, how is it not DRM again?" What a waste of silicon/transistors and what a waste of energy (the toll is passed to the user). Intel goes further than this by integrating Microsoft's DirectX 11 in Ivy Bridge chips:

Intel will integrate DirectX 11 graphics technology in its next generation of laptop and desktop chips based on the Ivy Bridge architecture, a company executive said on Thursday.

DirectX 11 includes a set of tools that can generate more realistic images when playing games on PCs running Windows 7. Intel will integrate the technology in next-generation laptop and desktop chips, as use of the technology in applications will spread by then, said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel, in an interview on Thursday with the IDG News Service during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.


"Microsoft has pushed DirectX into Intel's silicon," explained to us a reader, "it is also claimed that AMD vandalized some cheapo processors that way too. [...] x86 to suck worse than ever."

It will suck more energy at the user's expense (power bills), for the benefit of Microsoft and the copyright cartel. That's just why we desparately need more architectures like ARM, which would not tolerate wasteful chip designs because of its target markets (battery life is king there).

Mary Jo Foley suggests that Windows Embedded Compact may die as a result of the announcement from ARM:

But has Microsoft decided to stop touting Embedded Compact as a good operating system for tablets and slates, instead putting all of its eggs in the Windows basket? If that is the case, I’d say there’s little doubt that the possibility of a Windows Phone OS tablet is DOA. Instead, the most those of us who like the Windows Phone UI can hope is that the MoSH (modern shell) UI for Windows 8 takes a lot from the Windows Phone 7 interface.


It's all just fluff from Mary Jo Foley and many of the above are either "DOA" (dead on arrival) or vapourware (Vista 8 for example). Microsoft's 'new' mobile platform has already failed and as Jan Wildeboer put it the other day: "More important than Android passing iPhone is fact that MSFT market share actually goes down, not up!"

"MSFT said that Windows 8 ARM version will run only on Qualcom, TI an NVIDIA CPUs. No Marvell, no Samsung, no Freescale," one of our readers added. Well, it is vapourware and even for something that does not exist (Vista Eight) it sounds underwhelming. Remember for example that Microsoft keeps talking about it without ever showing a prototype and whenever Microsoft does this it by far overplays the characteristics (as put down in a wishlist rather than specifications). Watch Mary Jo Foley promoting this vapourware. It's her job.

In summary, Microsoft's announcements regarding ARM and Vista 8 are probably just intended to harm competitors like Linux and not necessarily deliver anything significant any time soon, if ever.

"The purpose of announcing early like this is to freeze the market at the OEM and ISV level. In this respect it is JUST like the original Windows announcement...

"One might worry that this will help Sun because we will just have vaporware, that people will stop buying 486 machines, that we will have endorsed RISC but not delivered... So, Scott, do you really think you can fight that avalanche?"

--Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
 
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
Microsoft is in effect collapsing
Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
we're on the right track
Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
Links for the day
The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
"Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
Abuse of Process
5RB is employing people who help violent men
What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
"Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
Unable to find a business model
GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
Wayland is Bad for the Planet
If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
Microsoft is a very malicious company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
On Microsoft Layoffs
we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
Links for the day
Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.
Tomorrow is the Last Day of the Fund-Raising Campaign of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
They will probably extend the date, as usual
Fixing Patents in Europe, Little by Little (by Transparency and Reporting of Suppressed Facts)
Tomorrow and throughout the weekend we shall focus some more on the EPO
The Two Lies Microsoft is Telling in "the News" This Week (to Distract From Layoffs and Decreased Interest in Slop/Chaff)
Microsoft is run by liars and frauds who SLAPP critics
Tux Machines Already Destroyed SLAPPs
Attacks on the mere publication of GNU/Linux news won't be tolerated
PCLinuxOS is Available for Download Again
PCLinuxOS is important to us also because its founder, back then the partner of Susan, helped create Tux Machines more than 21 years ago
Links 10/07/2025: Microsoft E-mail 'Services' Collapse Again, "Yet Another Strava Privacy Leak"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/07/2025: Automating Git Repo Updates and Small Web 'Zine'
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Leftovers
mostly Linux stuff
Audiocasts/Shows: Going Linux, FLOSS Weekly, and RHEL Clones
3 new picks
We Are Already Fighting - With Considerable Success - SLAPPs in the UK
we intend to tell the full story
Bullies With Pens and Papers (or Apple Macs With Templates)
Not all barristers are evil, but there are perhaps "rotten apples"
Slopwatch: webpronews.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com
a pile of trash disguised as 'articles'
Links 10/07/2025: Linda Yaccarino Divorces MElonazi Site, Wildfires Hit Syria
Links for the day
The History and the Policy of the EPO's Stance on Breastfeeding (Corporate Monopolies Versus Babies' Health)
"The Case for Introducing a Breastfeeding Policy at the EPO"
Gemini Links 10/07/2025: Inventing Chords and "Nightmare Boss"
Links for the day
Igor Ljubuncic Once Again Shows That for Technical Reasons Wayland Still Sucks, Performs Considerably Worse Than What Existed for Decades
That is aside from compatibility factors and other crucial factors
Links 10/07/2025: "Apple Vs The Law" and Twitter Became Full Nazi Bar
Links for the day
Unable to Find Anyone to Work as Their Media Lawyer, Brett Wilson LLP Will Continue Losing Female Staff
What sort of sick person would wish to join Brett Wilson LLP to carry this baton?
Microsoft-Sponsored Propaganda Site Has Removed False 'Hit Piece' About Dr. Stallman (With Fake and Misrepresented Imagery) But Only After 4 Years
So they only removed that page some time around 2025, i.e. about 4 years after it had been published
Always Check Your Inputs
Garbage in, garbage out. Or wrong assumptions, wrong corollary.
Dan Neidle Said That Tax Evasion Facilitator Mr Zahawi (Working to Silence Bloggers Through Brett Wilson LLP) Targeted Not Only Him (But The Others Kept Quiet)
"Mr Neidle said after repelling Mr Zahawi he was contacted by bloggers and tweeters who had received similar threats. They deleted their work “and in most cases never commented publicly on anything again”."
SLAPP Funding Transparency Urgently Needed in the UK and Elsewhere (in Practice, Not Just in Theory)
Writing about crime - including Microsoft crime - is not a crime
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things