ARM CEO hints at possible Windows 7 support for ARM processors
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 1st 2009 8:41PM
posted May 1st 2009 8:41PM
This could just be a case of a CEO letting his wishful thinking out into the open, but ARM's Warren East was apparently all too happy to talk about the possibility of Windows 7 supporting ARM processors during a recent analysts conference call, even if he wasn't quite ready to offer much of anything in the way of specifics. He did lay out the scenario pretty well, however, leading off by saying that "Microsoft will continue to play an important part in this [netbook] space," and that "if there was Windows support for the ARM processor today clearly it would be a very different marketplace." To which he apparently quickly added, "perhaps there will be support in future but that's really for Microsoft to comment on and not for us to comment on, I'm afraid." Of course, all of this is made all the more interesting given ARM's increasing interest in the netbook space, which is certainly a tough nut to crack without Microsoft's assistance -- Android possibilities notwithstanding.[Via Electronista]
wow so they will copy the iPhone
Windows CE/Windows Mobile has supported ARM for years before the iPhone was even a glimmer in Steve Jobs' eye.
Windows running on ARM is copying Apple as much as OSX running on Intel is copying Microsoft.
... much like your mother :D
OS X running on a phone is to Windows running on netbooks as...?
Windows Mobile (or Windows CE as was) has been offering a mobile Win32 compatible API since 1996, now admittedly you can't write an app which will run on directly on both Windows Desktop and Windows CE (unless you use .NET CF- available since 2002, fact fans) - but it is possible to take a suitably written source file and compile it to both targets. Which is about pretty much the same deal as OSX running on the iPhone (except you get multi-tasking on WinMo) so about as far removed from "copying the iPhone" as you can possibly get.
Getting the full NT Kernel running on ARM would be a massive step forward though. MinWin et al prove that it its very modular structure lends it well to relatively low powered systems, and it it was designed from the ground up to be processor independent (running on Alpha and PowerPC as well as Intel x86) so it doesn't sound too unreasonable. The NT kernel doesn't get anywhere near enough credit in my opinon, it's an extremely clever and flexible piece of OS design that in many respects is far more flexible and advanced than the relatively antiquated *nix model.
that guy looks burnt out. (Hes trying hard to smile.)
I really don't think he'd be in a position to know. I expect it'll be Balmer who tells us about this.
It will be useless, no Windows (7 or otherwise) programs are compiled for ARM.
.Net
Windows has been pushing .Net programming for years.
It all runs on a virtual machine...
I'm sure the ARM boys want to get into the low power Netbook market.
Windows NT also ran on PowerPC many moons ago. All OS's worth their salt can be ported between processors.
Exactly. As much as I'd love to see x86 die already, the demand for binary compatibility with existing Windows software will keep it alive as long as Windows is around. The only way I could see this working is if Microsoft licensed the same technology Apple used for Rosetta around the Intel transition. Otherwise, it would be best just to push Ubuntu as hard as possible.
MS will compile Office. That's plenty of stuff right there. Remember, Apple just pulled off a transition of this sort recently, and their business model showed many people how relatively unimportant far-flung apps can be to many users. Apple didn't even have Office for a year and Photoshop for over a year.
Besides, it's not like these ARM machines have any MORE compatibility with Windows apps running Linux than they would with Windows 7 for ARM.
There aren't enough .Net applications to make it worthwhile IMO. Even then, when you consider the limited performance of most ARM chips and the additional overheads of .Net, it seems like the benefits are limited for users.
The benefits are even more limited for Microsoft. How many versions of Windows is that now? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions makes it at 20 in 7 products. All of those need to be maintained, and they just dilute the brand. Brands have to be managed if they are to help a business, and Microsoft has shown increasing recognition of the need to manage their brand. This was very clear in Vista and is continuing in Windows 7.
I think this is just an executive worried by Intel's recognition of its most valuable asset and its recent "x86 everywhere" policy, trying to tempt Microsoft to enter the market by pointing out that it'd be a blow to linux. Really, it'd just be a boon to his company, as the limited availability of Windows is what gives Intel's x86 architecture its value.
All that would be needed would be a "Build for ARM" checkbox in Visual Studio, and developers could make binaries easily. This isn't new shocking stuff. Apple and Linux devs do it all the time. Windows Devs had the option for PowerPC for a long time, just not used a whole lot.
It's not a big deal.
Would be a wise move on Microsofts part. For one, they could move away from WinMobile and just use Win 7 for phones, like Apple has done.
And it would push the .Net platform which would be good for MS and users alike.
I don't think they'll be able to pull it off technically: Windows is too much of a mess to make this work. It's a herculean task.
However, if they do actually get this to work, it would make Windows so much better. No more hacks, no more ancient version support (except in a VM on a desktop), etc etc. Technically, it would be an infinitely cleaner version of Windows.
bring it on. microsoft could be working with nvidia on tegra with windows 7 or qualcomm... hence nvidia's ambitious processor plans
Tegra is ARM11 based and sucks compared to the new Cortex based OMAP series.
One of the main draws for Windows, especially on these things, is games. It would take massive involvment from MS and a HUGE shift in companies that make games for it to happen.
And high end ARM chips hardly have 'limited performance' compared to their low power x86 counterparts
Don't the iPod and iPhone run on arm cores?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=iphone+specs
Do you think Apple is going to turn over their devices to MS OSes? I doubt it.
What exactly is Boot Camp then?
Bootcamp was a response to what a lot of people were already doing: booting a popular OS on standardized, open, unlocked hardware.
Apple saw this happening, knew they could do dick all about it, and spun it that it was their idea.. and you bought into their hype.
The iPhone isn't exactly a standardized platform.
Apple seem to have been buying in a lot of chip design expertise lately (specifically PowerPC with PA Semi, but also some ex- AMD/ATI people). Whether this means they just want to design their own chips around the ARM core, or whether PowerPC is back in the frame I have idea!
So is 7 on the iPod a possibility I mean with multi-touch and reasonable specs (I saw it run on a umpc with similar specs)?
No, really not even remotely. For so many reasons.
Windows is a bit more than Win7 / Vista /XP
There's CE, winows mobile and windows for embedded devices.
They all run ARM, CE 6.0 has great apps (office, excel, PDF, networking/internet, multimedia, ...)
The system specs on phones would have to become very fast in order for this to happen.
"perhaps there will be support in future but that's really for Microsoft to comment on and not for us to comment on, I'm afraid."
I don't see any hints about support coming, It says that they want Microsoft to add support for their business.
Sweet, I hope it's true, because I'd like a netbook running nVidia's Tegra platform and Win7
And then windows 7 will crap ice cream and solve the world hunger crisis. Seriously, at this point I see that as a possibility.
No, silly. Obama uses OS X.
ethana2: Is that why he looks great but hasn't really done much?
my rundown of the importance of netbooks and ARM processors to innovation: http://bit.ly/16hWqm
Is the Arm processor instruction compatible with the PowerPC chips of old?
In other words, could you install Windows 7 Arm edition on an old Mac?
Just curious, I'm no Apple Fanboy by a long shot.
Completely different ISAs. If you want PPC you're looking at OS X, Ubuntu and such, or some obscure version of Windows NT 5 point something.
The fastest ARM-based desktop currently existing would be Castle Technology's Iyonix PC, with a 600 MHz XScale IOP321. It was released in late 2002. 1 gig of RAM max, so at least it can hold enough to run Win7 well enough... but I doubt that Microsoft would compile Win7 for ARM for an ARMv5 target, there's no point in compiling for old XScales and ARM10s, everything's going to at LEAST Tegra (ARM11, which is ARMv6,) and more towards Snapdragon (ARMv7,) Cortex-A8 (which currently is the TI OMAP3 and Freescale i.MX515, also ARMv7,) and Cortex-A9 (TI OMAP4, also ARMv7.)
That said, there is Marvell's Sheeva core, and that's ARMv5TE right now, just like the XScale, and it's got performance on par with Snapdragon and Cortex. So, maybe they will go for an ARMv5TE target...
Other than that, there's the Advantage Six A9home, which... sucks. I want to say it's fixed at 128 MiB RAM, and has an ARM9 (ARMv4T.) NEXT!
That leaves Acorn's RiscPC, and that thing can't hold enough RAM to run Win7 (maxes out at 256 MiB of EDO. You might be able to get 384 MiB in one if you use a Kinetic CPU card, which has 64 or 128 MiB of SDRAM onboard. Even then, your fastest CPU option is a 300 MHz StrongARM, IIRC - roughly equivalent to a 233 MHz Pentium MMX in processing power, IIRC. And, it's an ARMv4.)
Oh, and I forgot to mention. NT 5.something would be Windows 2000, XP, or Server 2003.
And, NT 4.0 PPC won't run on a Mac, only a PReP system - which is an IBM RS/6000 43P, or some other stuff, but Apple never made a 100% PReP-compliant system.
ISA diversity is the only way one operating system can dominate an entire market and still remain somewhat secure.
I'm all for it. 'course, the OS that does the dominating, well. I have my own bets there..
kinda think the headline is slightly far-fetched from the small amount of info giving... thats it, im going to gizmondo!
Well, Windows NT (which 7 is built on) was availble for Alpha and PowerPC. Interesting fact: the original windows NT wasn't even developed on an x86 computer, the guys at Microsoft used an Intel RISC chip. The entire underpinnings of the OS is something called the "HAL" which abstracts away differences between different architectures - that's right - windows was designed to run on multiple processor types from the very beginning.
It doesn't get over the problem of binary compatibility, but as DEC showed with FX32 (and Apple with Rosetta), dynamic binary recompilation is possible and works quite well.
You can, in fact, go out and buy a rather powerful computer running Windows on a PPC processor right now.
Be good if it turns out to be true
This would be interesting :D
WAIT....you telling me people have processors in their arms now? That can possibly run windows 7? AMAZING
People have had processors in their arms for years:
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4282/
@Malcom.....fuck off
Could it be that the quote might have something to do with ummm... Windows Mobile 7???
@Phil: Trivia time: Which movie has the "RISC processors will change everything" on it?
@futurepastnow: Where did you buy the thing you are smoking? PPCs won't run Windows unless you either have that NT version somebody else said around here, or (and if the hardware is powerful enough) if you emulate it. (Say, a PS3 has the Cell processor which is a derivative of PPC, in which you can run Ubuntu, use Virtualbox on it and run Windows... But that would be illegal, so don't do it.)