After reading an article on ITWorld, I realized that while it was written excellently I didn’t agree with the points the author was making.  Instead of trying to simply say I don’t agree and pretend that that’s good enough I’ll go point by point on why I disagree and you can decide for yourself.

First, Eric Lai, the author says that Microsoft wouldn’t port Windows 7 to ARM processors because it’s afraid of Intel.  Are you mad?  Seriously, have you been committed recently.  Maybe I understand it incorrectly but people don’t use Linux.  Yes, there are pockets of people who prefer anything over a Microsoft anything but very few of those people are the people running out to buy a netbook.  No matter how much Intel fought to optimize Linux they can’t make people buy it, use it, or keep it.  Many netbook manufacturers have given up on Linux netbook because of the return rates.  If anything AMD would love something like this so they can brag about their processors being more optimized for Windows.  Intel would hate that a whole lot more and there’s a billion dollar judgment to prove it.

Second, while it might be technically difficult for Microsoft to move Windows to ARM it isn’t impossible and that doesn’t mean it couldn’t or shouldn’t happen.  Microsoft has a lot on their plate.  They’ve already start working on Windows 8, someone has to finish Windows Mobile 7 (and clean up Windows Mobile 6.5), people are always looking for a new version of Microsoft Office, Bing won’t get better unless people are touching it, which leave little time for anything.  None of that matters as Microsoft can pay for as many engineers as it wants or needs.  Microsoft typically looks at things overt the course of 5+ years and it will take about that long for ARM based computers to get popular.  In the meantime it will be a minority project receiving minority support.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter if Microsoft had 1,000 operating systems on ARM chips.  People know Microsoft Windows and if a netbook were to be released and it was using an ARM processor it would use Windows 7 or Windows Mobile.  Microsoft wouldn’t try to get people used to a completely different way of interacting with something they’ve been familiar with for so long.

With Nvidia talking more and more about Tegra 2, an ARM based netbook seems like it’s a matter of when and not if.

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