ARM version of Win8 performance is stable February supply developer

According to the US technology information website CNET, many people familiar with the matter said that Windows 8's performance on the ARM platform is quite stable and will soon be available to developers for trial use. In addition, the ARM version of Windows 8 device costs may be far lower than the Intel version of Windows 8 devices.

A person familiar with the matter said that the ARM version of Windows 8 will be available to developers in February this year, and Windows 8's performance on the ARM platform is quite stable, which left a deep impression. Another person familiar with the matter said: “In October last year, the ARM version of Windows 8 had scared the industry because it was quite unstable. ”

This person also confirmed that the ARM version of Windows 8 will be available to developers in February: "We are not directly aware of this news from Microsoft, but the news from Microsoft hardware partners confirmed. at this point. They assured us that the ARM version of Windows 8 will be released to developers for trial in February. ”

A Windows 8 device equipped with an Intel chip has attracted widespread attention at the Las Vegas International Consumer Show (hereinafter referred to as "CES"), but if ARM architecture is used, this The equipment will be cheaper for hundreds of dollars. According to the source, the device, produced by a top PC manufacturer, is identical in appearance to the Intel version of Windows 8 devices that debut at CES.

For ARM, another plus factor is that there is no reason to think that the release time of the ARM version and the Intel version of the Windows 8 device should be "staggered", which means that the ARM version of the Windows 8 device should be no later than Released on Intel version of Windows 8 device. However, this person also said that this is only his personal guess, not from the official attitude of Microsoft. Others believe that the ARM version of Windows 8 devices will be released later than the Intel version of Windows 8 devices.

Windows 8 is considered to be the most important upgrade to the Microsoft operating system since Windows 3.0. I am afraid this is not an exaggeration. Microsoft's mainstream operating system will support Intel/AMD and ARM architecture &mdash for the first time; the latter is the most widely used chip design in the world. Today, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and NVIDIA are the three largest ARM chip makers. According to people familiar with the matter, Windows 8 is stable on at least two ARM platforms.

However, this does not mean that all questions surrounding the ARM version of Windows 8 have been answered, Microsoft Office will bear the brunt. None of the above-mentioned two people have seen the performance of Microsoft's killer application on the ARM platform, but one of them said, "I heard that Microsoft Office performed well on the ARM platform."

In addition, the performance of Microsoft's legacy applications on the ARM platform is equally interesting. In this respect, Intel has always been quite confident, hoping to use this as a competitive advantage against ARM, at least initially. A person familiar with the matter said: “I don’t know the performance of third-party legacy applications in the ARM version of Windows 8. Of course, some of the Metro applications demonstrated by Microsoft will support the ARM version of Windows 8, which are mostly HTML5 applications. ”

Another person familiar with the matter said: "This is one of the difficulties that Microsoft is trying to overcome." You certainly want to have a very stable number of applications. "Two people familiar with the matter believe that this is also a reason why Microsoft is cautious when demonstrating the ARM version of Windows 8 at the CES show.

Microsoft declined to comment.