Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is Living and Dying in x86 Land

Board hardware



Summary: Usage trends, notably mobility and compactness, drive hardware changes, which in turn leave Microsoft Windows in the innovator's dilemma, inevitably resulting in its demise

ARM has been causing Intel a lot of trouble. AMD too cannot be enjoying it. A lot of the devices sold today (largely Linux-based) no longer run on this aging architecture of theirs. Vista 8 has been hailed as the mythical operating system that would run on ARM, but just to explain how much of a vapourware/hype it really is, consider the fact that Vista 8 has no useful plans for third-party developers. The monocultural and binary culture of Microsoft is killing its business and this one news article says: "You won't see the desktop version of Photoshop or Firefox or Chrome or World of Warcraft on your Windows 8 ARM device, either -- not unless there's enough adoption to justify the expense of compiling an entirely new build; and who knows whether ARM chips are powerful enough to run applications that are usually found on x86 computers?"



To clarify, it's a proprietary software issue, as the source code is not available. Debian, by contrast, does not have such a problem.

Will from our IRC channels wrote that "Windows on ARM will not run legacy software: Microsoft has promised their Office suite on ARM, but nothing more. Ok, so explain to me why anyone would chose Windows on ARM, which will NOT have any of the legacy software that keeps Windows on life support these days, over some version of Linux on ARM, in which you have a wealth of free software only a recompile away?"

Here is another article about this:

Microsoft may be porting Windows 8 to the ARM architecture, but the general manager of Intel's software and services group insists she's not losing any sleep over a bruising battle in a more-competitive arena. At least when it comes to PCs.

Speaking on Tuesday at Intel's Investor Meeting 2011 in Santa Clara, California, Renée James pointed out that the next version of Windows – popularly known as Windows 8 – will be available in versions for both x86 and ARM. There will be a "Windows 8 traditional", she said, that will run on x86 chips and handle "legacy applications", meaning existing x86-based Windows apps, and there will be a separate version of the OS that runs on ARM. Windows 8 traditional, she explained, will include a "Windows 7 mode".


Mr. Pogson says that Microsoft is dying because the lock-in is dying. People can now buy Android devices.

The monopoly has relied on retail lock-in for decades. It’s gone. It’s dead. These small, not-so-cheap computers are flying off retail shelves as fast as they can be stocked and there is increasing growth rate…


Suffice to say, Microsoft has resorted to patent litigation against Linux because it cannot conceive or imagine any other ways to win (which it won't).

"Gates's refusal to adopt Adobe's technology had something to do with money—Gates was not feeling cash rich in 1984—but it had even more to do with Gates's persistent delusion that Windows be like the Mac."

--Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft's PR mogul

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Snowy Photos and utism is a Spectrum
Links for the day
Microsoft-Sponsored Xenophobia and Nationalism
IBM is very similar in this regard
Vintage is Sometimes Better
Why can't we get back to "simple" if (or where) "simple" means better?
Climate Breakdown Means We'll be Publishing More, Not Less
Press freedom will be a common, recurring theme
Our 5-Year Geminispace Anniversary is Coming Up
I still remember when Gemini Protocol was quite new
It's Right to Point Out Violence From the Right
Violence is a recurring theme
Tentative Summary of Things to Publish in Project 2030
I'll still be in my forties by then
Web Browsers That "Do Hey Hi" (AI)
State-of-the-art plagiarism or "autocomplete on steroids" (not coined by us, nevertheless a nice description) don't have much/any prospect
Links 20/09/2025: Hardware Projects in View, Some Independent Publishers About Russia Prosper After Cheeto Cuts Funding
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Options and TV Time Machine
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Retrocomputer, Antique Phone Experience, and More
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Internet Shutdowns, Media Censorship, and Climate Worries
Links for the day
About 700 New Gemini Capsules in 13 Months (or 54 Per Month)
4.8K would represent a 20% increase
Rust People: Drain the Swap, You're Holding It Wrong
Does Rust make sense?
Techrights the Name Turns 15
About 6 weeks from now we turn 19
Microsoft is Running Out of Time and Floating Fake Figures, Fake Projects, Fake Narratives, Fake Excuses
Also, a lot of Microsoft's "revenue" claims are circular financing (i.e. Microsoft buying from itself, which means Ponzi-like fraud)
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, linuxconfig.org, and Plagiarised Phoronix
Many articles out there are nowadays fake
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 19, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Navigating the Pressures of Modern Life and SpellBinding Accidentally Wrote Another Gemini Server
Links for the day