[Info-vax] VSI licensing policy (again), was: Re: VSI has a new CEO

[David Goodwin]

On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:41:54 AM UTC+12, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Monday, August 16, 2021 at 4:53:08 PM UTC+12, dgso... at gmail.com wrote: 
> > Additionally, current Windows on ARM isn't their third or fourth attempt - its their first. 
> > They ported Windows NT to ARM once and have made it available in various editions 
> > ever since as they've tried to find a niche for it.
> Fitting in with Einstein’s definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over, hoping for a different outcome each time.

Good thing they've not been trying the same thing over and over then!

The initial ARM offering (Windows RT) was a variant of Windows 8 that could only run apps from the windows store. There was a version of Visual C++ that could target this variant of windows but I don't know if applications built with it could be distributed via the Windows Store or if Microsoft required "modern"-style apps written in .net. This product ultimately failed for reasons that should have been obvious to everyone within Microsoft before the first device running it was sold.

Later there was Windows 10 IoT Edition. This is just a rebrand of Windows Embedded which has been around in various forms since the 90s. The difference here is its now available on ARM in addition to whatever platforms it was previously available for. The IoT Core variant was made available for free on Raspberry Pis for hobbyist use. I've no idea if Windows IoT for ARM could be considered a failure as I doubt Microsoft publishes sales data for something like this. Given its been around since the 90s I assume if it wasn't making money they would have given up on it by now.

The most recent consumer-oriented effort is just Windows 10 (or 11) but on an ARM processor. Apparently it works fine. Its got some sort of binary translation/emulation thing (like Apples Rosetta 2 I guess) that lets it run unmodified x86 software. If an ARM Windows laptop appears to be just another laptop running Windows to end users then I'd say Microsoft has done all they can. Whether it would then be successful is down to the companies making the hardware it runs on. Seems unknown whether Qualcomm can be bothered trying to compete with Apple in making a high performance low power ARM CPU.