Microsoft plans announcement of WSJ for ARM chips

Microsoft in a bid to support their plans towards providing low-power devices and adds support for a range of both ARM and x86 both being Intel and AMD based chips, will in all likelihood announce or possibly give a demonstration of WSJ, a version of their Windows OS at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The WSJ which is a version of the company’s Windows OS for ARM chips would score over both power savings by means of a longer battery life as well as cost advantages over x86 based systems, mainly targeted towards portable devices.

Microsoft is focusing majorly on the pricing department mainly to be able to grab market share from Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android in the portable devices segment such as Smart phones, Tablets/Slates, and other popular devices like netbooks.

What still remains to be seen however is whether this new offing by Microsoft will be an actual version of MS Windows, or another variant of their already ARM-compatible Windows CE or Windows Embedded Compact 7 operating systems, however what can be predicted with a fair degree of certainty is the fact that whatsoever Microsoft would be ready to announce next month, would be Windows CE-related. This is owing to the logic that the implementation of a full OS in its entirety will in all likelihood take at least another two years as they develop the required driver database and go through the normal OS development phases. In contrast ARM chips have progressed a great deal in the last couple of years, offering multicore processing and high clock speeds in terms of improved CPU capabilities. Windows however has been catering to the market of Windows CE-based operating systems, take for instance the Pocket PC, Windows Mobile or even the Windows Phone 7 for a long time now, all of which run pretty well on ARM-based chips but cannot run most apps developed for the desktop version of Windows.

Source(s)