[Info-vax] Microsoft On ARM Failure (was Re: VSI licensing policy (again))

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 9/23/21 4:08 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 9/23/2021 3:20 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2021-09-23 15:17:50 +0000, Dave Froble said:
>>
>>> My question is, "why"?
>>>
>>> x86 is cheap.
>>> x86 is everywhere.
>>>
>>> What reason would Microsoft have to look at anything else?
>>
>> Price and power efficiency, same as usual. Arm can be cheaper, more
>> power-efficient, and fast.
>>
>> https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd/9 
>>
>>
>>
>> Arm designs can also be juggernaut-scale, with 15 billion transistors in
>> one recent design; with fast big.LITTLE multiprocessor, a fast GPU,
>> statistics-math acceleration; that's a full-on SoC.  And
>> power-efficient. For comparison, Itanium Poulson and Kittson are ~3
>> billion. And Alpha and Itanium processors and servers never really saw
>> appreciable work on power efficiency.
>>
>> As for being "everywhere", the Arm installed base dwarfs those of Intel
>> and AMD and x86-64. And I'd suspect that Arm-related investments dwarf
>> Intel, too.
>>
>> Intel has spectacular processor design and processor fabrication
>> abilities, but they're also necessarily working within a massive
>> software installed base, and with a complex and accreted architecture.
>> And their fabrication efforts have been falling short. TSMC and others
>> have massive investments in fabrication, as well. Intel has discussed
>> using TMSC to fab parts of some Intel-designed components.
>>
>> https://www.reuters.com/business/intel-details-mixed-source-chip-strategy-tsmc-partnerships-2021-08-19/ 
>>
>>
>>
>> Microsoft has been selling Arm clients for a while, and publicly
>> prototyping Arm servers for several years now, as have others. How far
>> Microsoft might get with Windows 11 for ARM64? There are a number of
>> folks working with the Windows ARM64 insiders' preview, including having
>> gotten that working on Apple M1.
>>
>> https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2021/06/28/announcing-arm64ec-building-native-and-interoperable-apps-for-windows-11-on-arm/ 
>>
>>
>>
>> How? If? When? Unknown. Architectural and product transitions tend to be
>> boring and slow and happening only around the periphery of other
>> markets, then the platforms and tools are ready, and then the changes
>> can then accelerate through the market.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
> I'm aware of many of the things ARM is used for.  Yes, they are quite 
> useful.
> 
> But, are they much better for desktop and notebook PCs?  I really can't 
> see them being much better in that environment.

What difference does the CPU make for those two application genre?

bill