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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
Replying to
@stevesi
16/ We closed with a discussion about how we would be showing Intel ATOM SoC as part of the announcement which was going to be about SoC broadly, not just ARM, so Intel was included. We worked as partners on the event contents.
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
17/ Now we’re at CES. It’s a rough event for us because the opening keynote did not have a lot of news and Microsoft was not succeeding in phones or tablets. Android had swallowed the CES show floor when it came to (crappy) 7” plastic tablets running hacked Android 2.0.
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
18/ All is fair in “coopetition” a phrase Andy Grove used to describe the tech industry. Intel did come out swinging and did quite a bit of marketing versus our ARM investment. Some of it quite…candid. “Port of choice” = competitor to Windows! OS is just a choice, a component.
Intel: Microsoft's ARM-on-Windows deal no threat 'Bring it on!' Sat 8 Jan 2011 // 06:11 UTC 56 ¢ GOT TIPS? Rik Myslewski BIO EMAIL TWITTER SHARE CES 2011 Microsoft may have caused a disturbance in the PC Force with its announcement that the next version of Windows will run on ARM processors, but Intel isn't worried. "You want to come and party in our kitchen and rattle the pots and pans? I've got Sandy Bridge. Bring it on," Intel spokesman Dave Salvator told The Reg on Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Before that pugnacious pronouncement, however, Salvator tried to minimize the shock value of Microsoft's announcement. "To some degree, it's not really news," he said. "We've had Windows on ARM for years. It's called Windows CE." When reminded that Windows CE was not exactly the most impressive or powerful mobile operating system, Salvator admitted: "Well, that's why they call it 'WinCE'" Then he gave the "no news" dodge one more try. "When you think
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
19/ Our event was a smaller press-only event led by
@mikeangiulo
on the ecosystem team. They had an incredible array of prototypes—only one of each existed. And a bunch of demos showing all we could do with Windows on ̶S̶o̶C̶ ARM. Here’s mike with all the gadgets.
Mike and me on stage with ARM gadgets
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
20/ The point of view we had was that phones-tablets-laptops were converging on hardware requirements. phone and tablet (“slate”) h/w was gaining capability and now met the min OS req for Windows while Windows proper *finally* leveled off.
Slide with me. COnvergence of hardware capabilities of Processor/RAM/Storage/GPU of “mobile devices”, “personal computers”, “slates”
Me with a slide showing Windows hardware requirements over time growing until Windows Vista to Windows 7 when they remained the same.
Increasing mobile hardware requirements getting to IPhone 4, Nexus S, and WP7 requiring: APPLE iPHONE 4 GOOGLE NEXUS S WINDOWS PHONE 7 1 GHz 512 MB RAM >8 GB Storage Graphics Processing Unit
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
21/ While Mike and the ecosystem had to pull off some great demos. The main accomplishment was getting support from our ARM SoC vendors (plus Intel) and OEMs. This is the goal of the demo—not press or anything but to demonstrate public MSFT “skin in the game”.
Strong partnership slide: AMD, TI, Intel, NVIDIA, ARM, Qualcomm, plus Windows and Office.
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
22/ There was a lot of press coverage. This was viewed as significant “geopolitical” event. Much to our surprise we had a leak right before the holidays and that served to increase interest even more. Here’s
@techmeme
. This type of run was common for Windows post-PC :-)
A lot of techmeme headlines.
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
23/ A reminder that tablets where HUGE HUGE. Over 100 Android tablets blanketed the show floor. Windows 7 tablets/slates had indeed failed as I noted from CES 2010. Here’s
@BGR
with over 100 Android tabs. NOTE: most of these were not made by PC OEMs. That’s a huge deal too.
Compiled list of 100 Android tablets.
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
24/ The big meta/mega problem was that PC sales were grim and the shift to mobile AND tablets were to blame. People used and liked them more, even for work. In 2011Q1 PC sales had started to peak, forever basically.
PC sales ‘have passed peak’ says this headline. Weak demand and switch to tablets such as Apple’s iPad result in drop in worldwide PC shipments.
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
25/ Read post for engaging OEMs to make ARM devices. But also with one tweet left want to say to read the post to read about my 8,617 word blog post we dropped on “Windows on ARM”. It was a lot of detail—aka transparency. Full post embedded. Always loved this headline.
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WSJ: WHOA, A lot of words from Microsoft on ‘WOA’ PCs
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Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi
26/ Check out the post for audio too and a ton more details on the OEM ecosystem and of course more photos, PDFs, and more. Please consider subscribing - only about 10 posts left but get the whole set now. Next up—the new Windows 8 Experience!
hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com
Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky
Personal stories and lessons from inside the rise and fall of the PC revolution. Click to read Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of readers.
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