This is why the future smiles on Windows on ARM, and Intel trembles

Few reactions are as ingrained in living beings as the fear: following stress, the amygdala produces hormones like the adrenaline, which in turn create a cascade effect by increasing the heart rateThe Blood flow and sending more glucose in the muscles: (Speaking of fear, do you know how to check battery status on Windows?).

In big companies it’s not much different, and that’s what’s happening to Microsoft, that after witnessing a steady decline in its market shares due to the advance of Mac And Chromebooks, he turned into the biggest chip promoter ARM (read also: how to install Windows on Mac with M1 chip, but also M2 or M3).

What if Intel trembles, users will have what smile, because in the near future we can expect more computers based on this architecture, and especially with fewer limitations.

A new report from the Wall Street Journalwith the evocative title “Is this the end of Intel Inside?“, which analyzes Microsoft’s efforts to overcome the limitations of ARM computers and fight against Apple on its own ground.

Frustrated from the slow development of Intel, which slowed down the release of its computers, the Apple company in 2020 launched its first computers equipped with a proprietary chip, created using the ARM architecture and built by TSMC. The other intentions were to exploit the same profound hardware integration and software that it had in iPhones and iPads and have greater autonomy than Intel chips.

The very courageous transition was a success, and if Apple favored it transition with the program Rosettewhich allows you to run programs designed for the x86 architecture on ARM chips, in relatively In a short time the most important developers have converted theirs app to the new one architecture. And finally in June this year the Cupertino company completed the transition by announcing the new ones Mac Pro with ARM chip, eliminating every computer with from the catalog Intel processor.

And Windows? At the moment they are already there laptop market based on ARM, but they are rather limited, and Redmond itself admits it, listing the bigger problems.

Among these, first of all i drivers (for hardware, apps or games), which will only work if they are designed for a Windows 11 ARM-based PC, and if a driver doesn’t work, even the app or the hardware that relies on it won’t work (at least not completely).

As for the games and apps, Windows notes that they may not work if they use a version of OpenGL higher than 3.3 or if they rely on “anti-cheat” drivers that were not made for Windows 11 ARM-based PCs. Finally, apps that customize the Windows experience, such as some input method editors (IMEs), assistive technologies, and cloud storage apps, may have problems.

In short, switch to a computer Windows with ARM now it potentially means having a “neutered” machine (take a look at our review of the Surface Pro 9 SQ3, just to get an idea).

But things are changing. As we anticipated at the beginning, due to the decline in market shares (image above, from Statcounter the shares of desktop computers over the years in reference to operating systems), also Microsoft has gotten fed up with Intel, and is working hard to remove Windows limitations on ARM.

The solution could partly come by using a user-based approach cloud.

In any case, we don’t have to think of a one-size-fits-all solution. Microsoft is probably thinking about the business usersthose from which it derives i greater earnings and for which it could produce solutions economical and simple to manage by the IT department.

The approach would allow you to run the same apps on any type of architecture, even ARM, and indeed Microsoft is already using it to let people run Windows apps on iPhone, iPad And Mac.

This approach would leave ordinary users exposed, but Intel’s dominance would be greatly affected affected. Exactly, what does Intel do?

The company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger recently said that the reason for Apple’s strong performance is the ability to combine CPU, GPU And memory into a single unit, e Intel intends to achieve this objective by next year.

Morris Changthe founder of TSMC, which makes chips for Apple, is not convinced, and said Intel will fail to achieve this goal and will remain “a shadow of TSMC“. But the world of electronics is full of twists and turns, Intel it is a giant full of resources and the sector also comes into play geopolitical components.

If American companies were unable to gain access to TSMC due to China’s aggression towards Taiwan, the situation would change drastically.