Submission + - Next Generation of Windows to Run on ARM Chip
Hugh Pickens writes: "Sharon Chan reports in the Seattle Times that at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft showed the next generation of Windows running natively on an ARM chip design, commonly used in the mobile computing world, indicating a schism with Intel, the chip maker Microsoft has worked with closely with throughout the history of Windows and the PC. The Microsoft demonstration showed Word, PowerPoint and high definition video running on a prototype ARM chipset made by Texas Instruments, Nvidia. "It's part of our plans for the next generation of Windows.," says Steve Sinofsky, president of Windows division. "That's all under the hood." According to a report in the WSJ, the long-running alliance between Microsoft and Intel is coming to a day of reckoning as sales of tablets, smartphones and televisions using rival technologies take off, pushing the two technology giants to go their separate ways. The rise of smartphones and more recently, tablets has strained the relationship as Intel's chips haven't been able to match the low-power consumption of chips based on designs licensed from ARM and Intel has also thumbed its nose at Microsoft by collaborating with Microsoft archrival Google on the Chrome OS, Google's operating system that will compete with Windows in the netbook computer market. "I think it's a deep fracture," says venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gassee regarding relations between Microsoft and Intel."
