More Windows laptops to be ‘ARM Inside’ as Microsoft follows Mac lead

[donawalt]

Some have indicated Microsoft's push into ARM may be limited. It looks like there is a growing possibility that they see ARM as a very positive growing part of their portfolio, with a shoutout to Apple for the M-series success so far...

More Windows laptops to be 'ARM Inside' as Microsoft follows Mac

A few Windows laptops are already powered by ARM CPUs rather than Intel ones, but we can expect to see...

9to5mac.com

 

[bobcomer]

Some have indicated Microsoft's push into ARM may be limited. It looks like there is a growing possibility that they see ARM as a very positive growing part of their portfolio, with a shoutout to Apple for the M-series success so far...

More Windows laptops to be 'ARM Inside' as Microsoft follows Mac

A few Windows laptops are already powered by ARM CPUs rather than Intel ones, but we can expect to see...

9to5mac.com

They are addressing it by cloud based Windows -- that's even less likely to work unless they lower the cost of cloud based Windows a LOT. What a pain, and going to SoC, so probably no more RAM upgrades. Intel still wins...

First off, Microsoft doesn't have a consumer based cloud PC for "purchase" (read: subscription) yet, and the other providers of cloud PC's are usually around $30 *a month*, so $360 a year, on top of the cost of internet and hardware. Microsoft's business cloud PC are, at the cheapest, $31 for 2 cores and 4G of RAM. Yeah, that'll work.....

The idea is okay and maybe even able to work -- if they price it right. But needing internet all the time, and the extra cost just doesn't fly for individuals yet. Not to mention the latency if you don't have a fast internet connection, which is common where I live and work.

 

[donawalt]

Primarily it was speaking about chips in laptops replacing Intel chips:

A few Windows laptops are already powered by ARM CPUs rather than Intel ones, but we can expect to see a lot more in the future. A new report says that Microsoft is accelerating efforts to overcome the current limitations of these, so that more PC brands can follow Apple’s example in using ARM chips …

These days, it’s not just Apple moving away from Intel’s chips. Microsoft is accelerating its years-long effort to make Windows run on ARM-based processors, so that the entire PC ecosystem isn’t doomed by Intel’s failure to keep up with Apple and TSMC. The Mac and Google’s Chromebooks are already eating the market share of Windows-based, Intel-powered devices. As for Windows-based devices, all signs point to their increasingly being based on non-Intel processors.

Finally, Windows is likely to run on the cloud in the future, where it will also run on non-Intel chips.

Are you referring to the brief note on the WSJ article at the end? That seems to me to be an additional strategy to reduce reliance on Intel - getting Windows running in the cloud for Intel and ARM. It did NOT say anything about this being some strategy to get ARM chips "in laptops". Note it said "Finally" - (bolded in the last sentence above) - another part of their strategy to eliminate reliance on Intel . Note it also said Windows running in the cloud, "Also" on non-Intel).

What did I read incorrectly?

 

[bobcomer]

Primarily it was speaking about chips in laptops replacing Intel chips:

A few Windows laptops are already powered by ARM CPUs rather than Intel ones, but we can expect to see a lot more in the future. A new report says that Microsoft is accelerating efforts to overcome the current limitations of these, so that more PC brands can follow Apple’s example in using ARM chips …

These days, it’s not just Apple moving away from Intel’s chips. Microsoft is accelerating its years-long effort to make Windows run on ARM-based processors, so that the entire PC ecosystem isn’t doomed by Intel’s failure to keep up with Apple and TSMC. The Mac and Google’s Chromebooks are already eating the market share of Windows-based, Intel-powered devices. As for Windows-based devices, all signs point to their increasingly being based on non-Intel processors.

Finally, Windows is likely to run on the cloud in the future, where it will also run on non-Intel chips.

Are you referring to the brief note on the WSJ article at the end? That seems to me to be an additional strategy to reduce reliance on Intel - getting Windows running in the cloud for Intel and ARM. It did NOT say anything about this being some strategy to get ARM chips "in laptops". Note it said "Finally" - (bolded in the last sentence above) - another part of their strategy to eliminate reliance on Intel . Note it also said Windows running in the cloud, "Also" on non-Intel).

What did I read incorrectly?

Yes, the part from WSJ is my main focus. It doesn't really say how they are going to get WoA more compatible other than that.

>>​

But that’s changing​

The WSJ reports that Microsoft is aiming to get Windows working fully on ARM chips, in part by using a cloud-based approach.



As an aside, the picture at the top of the article is a 9th gen intel i5 processor in a desktop of some kind -- I find that very ironic and a totally poor choice for the subject matter! Ancient, even by intel standards.

 

[ArkSingularity]

They are addressing it by cloud based Windows -- that's even less likely to work unless they lower the cost of cloud based Windows a LOT. What a pain, and going to SoC, so probably no more RAM upgrades. Intel still wins...

First off, Microsoft doesn't have a consumer based cloud PC for "purchase" (read: subscription) yet, and the other providers of cloud PC's are usually around $30 *a month*, so $360 a year, on top of the cost of internet and hardware. Microsoft's business cloud PC are, at the cheapest, $31 for 2 cores and 4G of RAM. Yeah, that'll work.....

The idea is okay and maybe even able to work -- if they price it right. But needing internet all the time, and the extra cost just doesn't fly for individuals yet. Not to mention the latency if you don't have a fast internet connection, which is common where I live and work.

Yea, I personally hope that this isn't really the direction that the PC industry goes. Cloud based applications are great (think GeForce Now, or the plethora of cloud based office apps), but the entire OS, that's going to be a lot clunkier and I just don't see that really working out (not for the normal everyday consumer, at least. For enterprise use cases, that's a very different story).

 

[donawalt]

IMHO I think you guys are misreading it: Two strategies to reduce reliance on Intel: (1) more ARM/less Intel chips in laptops; this seems very clear and is the main thrust of the article (2) support for ARM in cloud Windows, for those that use/need it -

Nothing in either article said that cloud Windows will be replacing laptop Windows. It said the motivation for cloud based support is this:
- use computers that are much cheaper and simpler than conventional PCs;

and this
- version of Windows that workers are accessing remotely, in the cloud, can run on ARM-based chips in the data center too;

and this:
- Microsoft is already using this approach to let people run Windows apps on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

None of those solutions sound mainstream to me at all, but that's just my opinion - time will tell.

 

[bobcomer]

time will tell.

And that I can agree with!

I don't particularly care if a PC has an Arm chip, or intel/amd, as long as it runs *all* I need it to run, especially old stuff. There's no advantage to Arm for me, but if it runs everything, who knows. Currently, it doesn't. (I have WoA on my M2 Mini Pro) But it does run a great deal of it, even our custom apps, so maybe there's hope.

 

[donawalt]

I don't particularly care if a PC has an Arm chip, or intel/amd, as long as it runs *all* I need it to run, especially old stuff. There's no advantage to Arm for me, but if it runs everything, who knows. Currently, it doesn't. (I have WoA on my M2 Mini Pro) But it does run a great deal of it, even our custom apps, so maybe there's hope.

Very true.

I want ARM to succeed/become more powerful because Apple has tied its laptops to it - and I love the M1 series so far. I am also a big user of Parallels/Windows 11 (ARM), so increased commitment there is a big win for me too. Luckily what I use Parallels/Windows for all works today, but I know many people are not in that boat - another hope for renewed commitment by Microsoft.

I think there is hope (again my opinion lol), because I think the Microsoft fear that they are long past due for getting untied from Intel, as they are seeing their market share of chips get cannabalized (as the article said). Apple went through that, we all did too as users - it became an embarrassment the behind-the-times Macs that would come out too late and too little. Many more companies and customers than 10 years ago are buying non-Intel laptops, and that curve is going up.

Also, Microsoft knows 95% of the tech world knows Windows, if they can get it to run "perfectly" for more people on another platform - well as you said, users/companies won't care and it grows MS market share beyond what Intel can offer. The Wintel world is no more.