Yahoo reports that Microsoft is working hard on its efforts to port Windows to ARM chips so that it can deliver a tablet OS with decent battery life and a new UI, hopefully by June. But with developers still not in the mix with respect to app development, the report notes Microsoft most likely won’t have a viable iPad competitor until 2012 at the earliest.
Citing a source with inside information about Microsoft’s development process, the report relays that Microsoft still hasn’t shared important technical information about their Windows to ARM port with manufacturers who need “low-level access to Windows to write things like device drivers and antivirus software.”
The report continues,
Microsoft has not yet scheduled a Professional Developers’ Conference (PDC) to introduce developers to the new tablet platform. The company typically schedules a PDC whenever it needs to evangelize and share information with developers about an upcoming platform.
Apps are key: nobody buys a tablet for the operating system. Because Windows has never run on ARM before, any app that has been built for Windows will have to be rewritten — not a trivial task. To be any good, apps will also have to be redesigned for the new touch interface.
via Yahoo
March 1st, 2011 at 1:54 pm
that’s easy… just take the ipad, dummy up the icons, throw a wood finish on it and call it a ZunePad or something. Done.
March 2nd, 2011 at 1:14 am
And what of Windows Phone 7 (WP), once full Windows is running on ARM chips? Will Microsoft ditch WP and all of the apps written for it, and use Windows for ARM as its unified OS for both tablets and smartphones? Or will Microsoft have a fragmented mobile platform with two OSes, one, WP, for smartphones and another Windows for tablets? Wouldn’t developers love that, having to write two fundamentally different mobile apps for Microsoft’s fragmented dual OSes?