More MIDs with ARM than Atom by 2013 Looking forward to the day when ARM chips appear in more handheld internet devices than Intel and other x86 processors do? You may not have too long to wait - though don't expect an overnight switch. Market watcher ABI Research today said ARM will overtake Intel as the platform of choice for netbooks, MIDs, tablets and UMPCs …
I'm guessing that 2011 will be the break-out year for ARM mids-- NVIDIA's Tegra 2 sounds damn sweet, and it's just coming out (1.5 GHz ARM9 SMP + hi-res graphics). I'm guessing that it'll be another year before we start seeing products using Tegra, and maybe another year before it starts moving into more netbookie things. On another front, Apple did snap up PA-semi a few years back, it's possible that they are developing something crazy as well. Add in increases in SSD density and reduction in cost, and you have the potential for some very fast, very low power little devices.
The interesting thing will be seeing how Microsoft responds: if Linux/ARM netbooks start gobbling up the market, they're going to need to port Windows 7 over; I don't think Win CE / Win mobile will really cut it. So, if we imagine 2011 for first ARM/Linux netbooks, and Microsoft gets worried, it seems like they might be able to port Windows 7 in two years, which would put us at 2013, as per the article. Maybe a tad aggressive, but not unreasonable.
RISC OS Open has been ported to the Beagleboard (although, last I checked not proeprly ported, more "it runs, but not well") courtesy of some dedicated people in the ever-shrinking community
Talking of the RISC OS community, one of the old stalwart websites, The Iconbar, has a round up of ARM stuff from it: http://www.iconbar.co.uk/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=11316&page=1
Oh, article on the Beagleboard port as well: http://www.iconbar.co.uk/articles/RISC_OS_on_OMAP_-_the_future/index1224.html
Bit old now, but still interesting.
However, RISC OS isn't really going to make a come back, it's lack of pre-emptive multi-tasking kills it for most "modern" things, even browser-wise the best it has is a port of Firefox 2 and Netsurf, of which the latter has no Javascript support, but is very nippy even on an old StrongARM RiscPC.
Looking forward to Linux on ARM netbooks though with proper batteries that last days instead of hours.
2013 is about a a quarter century late, but hey, better horribly late than never at all.
About $400 would buy you a "touchbook", which is basically a (fancy!) netbook-type shell around a beagle board ($150 or so for the bare board, nice for prototyping and stuff). There were a few others announced, but they seem to've turned out DOA or perhaps killed dead in a back alley.
One thing that would be great is some way to "build to order", but even with mainstream laptops that's little more than choosing memory and cpu and, well, that was it. It'd be a true innovation to pull that one off. And yes, I very likely would come up with a design that pushes the envelope.
When the netbook market moves from x86 to ARM, that is, when Smartbooks become popular, then Microsoft loses. There is now no doubt that this will happen.
Microsoft has a leaky bucket, and the smartbook market is another hole in Microsoft's bucket (smartphones are another). Microsoft retains its desktop monopoly, but its mobile devices are dead.
Ballmer is not stupid, but he doesn't have a very good grasp of future technology. He must not have had much time to read technology magazines and websites, as he has missed every new technology of the past ten years.
How much am I bid?
It's an HP Jornada 720, vintage 2001, add your own jlime linux (shipped originally with the nearly usable Windows HPC which MS dropped shortly afterwards).
Anyway, nice to see the form factor and functionality coming back into fashion.
The problem with linux is always the same: usability. Linux still isn't where Windows was 5-10 years ago in terms of usability and integration. People need more than stability and security. As long as linux distro's stay a bunch of different tools and apps thrown together on a kernel, The MS and Apple guys will keep smiling...
(yes, I know linux, my main desktop and laptop run it)
ARM is likely to be the processor at the core of the iTablet, at least that is what people are predicting. Given that the iTablet is considered to be a MID from the perspective of industry ANALysts, that means that there's about to be a HUGE number of iTablets flooding the market.
Additionally, Intel is heading down, not up. So, the x86 will appear on devices that are more like iPhone than iTablet and will be pocket based telephone + PC in one. Using WHDMI and WUSB, it'll be someday be possible to sit at your desk and work on your telephone computer as if it were your desktop without ever taking it from your pocket.
Therefore, ARM will almost certainly dominate a market which Intel already appears to be abandoning in favor of x86 phones and Netbook sized notebooks (full power notebooks the size of a netbook).
Unless Android really takes off and manages to make a suitable replacement for Windows or Mac OS X, then there's little chance Linux will be championing the way for this transition. After all, let's face it. Earlier articles have been published that people were returning to the store by the truckload to return their Linux Netbook in favor of purchasing a Windows one.
I use Ubuntu Karmic for my main OS on my laptop, use XP at work and tested Windows 7 in order to know if it is worth upgrading to it.
Result: Not worth, Ubuntu and XP are just fine.
Yes, Windows 7 is more polished, but it is NOT MUCH more usable than a properly tweaked Ubuntu Gnome desktop or XP. And Linux is still evolving at a breakneck pace. Maybe not the UI specifically, but the distros like Ubuntu are getting better and more integrated with every release. And you get all of it free.
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