Microsoft is preparing a new lightweight version of Windows for dual-screen devices and Chromebook competitors. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the software maker is stripping back its Windows user interface with dual screens in mind. This new hardware could launch as early as later this year, depending on chip and PC maker readiness.
This would be the fifth attempt in recent years to create a new version of Windows designed for smaller and mobile devices – Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8 and up, Windows RT, and Windows 10 on ARM – and I just don’t see how this time it’ll all be different.
It does reek of another one of Microsoft’s me too attempts where they waste millions of dollars on something but it inevitably fails as there was never a niche that needed fulfilled by their product as they were too late to market (add Zune to that list of Windows phones and RT). The only thing that could possibly save it this time is if that x86 emulation on ARM is actually useful.
Agreed, however this is the only way Microsoft has ever succeeded so they have to keep trying. They basically copy an existing innovation and sometimes they out execute their competition boosted by the mass of people who don’t like anything new, i.e. love Microsoft.
I wouldn’t say this is at all equivalent to Windows 10 on ARM, the only reason that is smaller is that they don’t have to provide the 20 years of backwards compatible API’s that Windows on x86 does. It’s more analogous to the earlier attempts like RT, where they’re reducing the UI and stripping out some of the crap that they really don’t need even on full desktop systems anyway.
Looking at it a bit differently, Windows 10 on ARM is to Windows 10 on x86 as Ubuntu on ARM is to Ubuntu on x86, while this sounds a lot more like Lubuntu or Xubuntu in comparison, the goal isn’t to run on a different CPU, but to work sanely on less powerful hardware.