Qualcomm's Windows-capable silicon will land later rather than sooner Qualcomm's plan to kick Intel in the soft underbelly that is the PC market will come later rather than sooner. When the company announced its Snapdragon-for-Windows-10 plans in December 2016, the company said “The first devices running the full Windows 10 experience based on Snapdragon processors are expected to be …
Microsoft and Qualcomm keep trying...
In the data center I can see them making inroads eventually in the Azure cloud. But the other big boys can have their own ARM chips custom built. Why pay Qualcomm?
Windows RT might have worked, but it was released before it was ready. People are tired of being Microsoft's beta testers...
Microsoft Surface (x86) seems to be doing pretty well. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Where the two have a good chance for success is the next Xbox. But, number of Xbox's sold is nothing compared to the number of cell phones. Is it worth the bother?
Maybe Microsoft should just buy Qualcomm and spin off the parts they don't care about. Hello new patent troll.
When the company announced its Snapdragon-for-Windows-10 plans in December 2016, the company said “The first devices running the full Windows 10 experience based on Snapdragon processors are expected to be commercially available in the second half of 2017.”
So, nothing but an empty threat so far.
but.... this is for powering the cloud (or at least DC's)
Catch-22 becons.
I don't know if Qualcomm have an ARM Architecture License or not but my guess you'd need to do some magic with the Architecture in order to make this work at anything more than a 'Meh' level. Much like what Apple has done with the ARM Cpu's they use. They get impressive single core performance from their iDevice kit. As many applications are not really optomised for multi-core this sort of thing would help sell it.
OTOH, how many times before have we heard about some great/fantastic/gonna rule the world in the DC idea that uses ARM chips only for it to never be heard of again?
This is for mobile. The article's not exactly clear about the relevance of the Windows Server Arm port but I suppose the suggestion is there will be something similar for desktop Windows. Not that I'm blaming the Author. It seems Qualcomm is talking big but providing precious few details and we all know what that means.
"At that point, run everything from the cloud and just use a dumb terminal locally. Already seen several times..."
wait a minute, this reminds me of something... it's a TIMESHARING system! You know, green terminals with hotspot text areas (VT or HP terminals) that you can tab around and naviguess to, connected via serial port cables to an expensive mini or mainframe computer kept in an air conditioned room... ah, THOSE were the days, weren't they?
I think I prefer distributed processing of actual personal computers, thanks, even if it's just to read my e-mail and surf the intarwebs.
Swapping out "teh Intarwebs" for the serial cable, and making our personal computers a bunch of "dumb terminals" for "the cloud" timesharing service, is JUST! PLAIN! DUMB!!!
[but the big-iron fans can dream, and apparently they still do]
/me facepalms again
>What on earth do these chips have that is necessary for (ARM) Windows 10, that their previous chips don't?
x86 emulation? So you can run Windows' massive legacy software base.
MS was stuffed by Intel's exit from the mobile market. Without their legacy software MS has little to offer.
Intel's problem is that they don't want to do cheap. Why create a cheap Atom system when an i5 is so much more lucrative? MS' problem is that most users don't want underpowered Windows and those that do, don't want to pay full-fat licensing. It is a lethal combination for any mobile Windows solution. Essentially MS will have to give mobile licenses away as a bundle with something else. Hence... Cloud. With cloud the low-power cpu issue goes away and you can tie licenses to named users, preventing mobile licenses from being used simultaneously with desktop ones by different users.
don't forget its 32-bit-only. I suspect this is an extremely limited niche of practical usefulness, on top of the other obvious potential issues. At work, where I *need* windows at all, I am down to one 32-bit legacy style application that is the Keil uVision IDE (I assume). What are the chances USB debugging will even work on it on ARM, and why would I bother.
The fourth quarter is in the second half; all their statements are entirely consistent with each other. Some people may have assumed that "second half" actually meant "the start of the second half", but if that was actually the case they'd just have said "third quarter". Blaming Qualcomm for the unfounded assumptions of others seems a bit silly really.
Any strategy whose only chance at success relies on flawless execution and perfect timing is doomed from the start.
One side of the equation is Microsoft, remember - a company with the attention span of an excited toddler, who loves hanging onto their old, broken toys, hates change and enjoys bullying the other kids at playgroup until their toys are broken and nobody wants to play with them any more.
So yeah, can't see this being anything other than a 100% success*.
* this may be a lie.
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