Windows 7 on ARM-based hardware: Potential future or wishful thinking?
Warren East, president and CEO of ARM Holdings, has been loose-lipped recently about the prospect of Windows 7 running on ARM-based hardware. At an analyst's conference call following ARM's Q1 2009 financial results, East was quoted as saying, "Microsoft will continue to play an important part in this [netbook] space. If there was Windows support for the ARM processor today clearly it would be a very different marketplace." He concluded with this following thought: "Perhaps there will be support in future but that's really for Microsoft to comment on and not for us to comment on, I'm afraid."
East may desire ARM processor support from Windows 7 but thus far, the system requirements for the latest Release Candidate 1 continue to include only Intel-based hardware. Nonetheless, these comments by East leave us scratching our heads. Are they meant to hint that Microsoft is moving along the path of expanding Windows 7 to support a wider variety of hardware or is it just wishful thinking on his part? We sure hope it's the former, as an Archos Internet Media Tablet capable of dual-booting Windows 7 and Android would be sweet!
[EETimes]This post was written by Kelly Hodgkins, long-time fan of mobile devices and news writer at The Boy Genius Report.
