What's a 'real PC'? Not one that will run on ARM, Intel's chief executive said on Tuesday.
At its analyst meeting on Tuesday, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini talked dismissively of computers based on the ARM processor, that are scheduled to come out in conjunction with Windows 8. He also claimed that Microsoft would have four versions of Windows on ARM, without saying what they were.
Earlier on Tuesday, Intel had announced a strategy shift toward developing ultramobile chips, while later showing off Atom-based phones, tablets, and some cool new PC technologies. During the afternoon, the discussion shifted to software, where Intel executives talked confidently about the number of apps that the Intel X86 phone platform would have.
Windows on ARM represents a viable threat to the duopoly of "Wintel," where, as Intel co-founder Andy Grove described it, the two companies would come out with hardware and software designed to maximize the capabilities of the other's platform. If Intel came out with a new microprocessor, for example, the Microsoft operating system would be designed to maximize it, which would incent customers t o demand a faster chip from Intel.
With Windows on ARM, that spiral would then shift over to ARM and its licensees. And that would supposedly take a deep bite into Intel's profit margin, at least according to one analyst who queried Otellini at the analyst day.
Otellini, however, dismissed the claim. First off, he said, Intel was "very competitively priced with ARM-based products," at least where tablets and smartphones are concer ned. (Intel announced yet another delay to its X86 smartphone program on Tuesday, pushing X86 phones back into 2012.)
Arguments that Hewlett-Packard or other OEMs could somehow use ARM as a lever to differentiate themselves and design a cheaper but still profitable PC "don't understand the way this business works," Otellini said.
If HP ships an ARM-based PC, so will Lenovo, and the Taiwan ODMs , and all of the other manufacturers, Otellini said – a sinking tide, that, in effect, will beach all of the OEM's boats.
The real argument, Otellini said, was that the X86 PC was a "real PC". "What's a real PC? For the next 10 years, it's going to be one that has access to and can run legacy applications," he said.
Of course, that's the same line that Microsoft espoused in 2009, when ARM was making bold claims about "smartbooks" toppling the Wintel hegemony.
"We sort of learnt in the last year that if it looks like a PC and acts like a PC, people want the features and benefits of a PC," Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft's corporate vice-president for original equipment manufacturers, told Reuters at the 2009 Computex show.
Since then, of course, Microsoft decided that the "the features and benefits of a PC" didn't necessarily require an Intel chip. Intel, for its part, has decided not to develop an ARM-based processor, Otellini said.
The real question, it seems, will be whether Microsoft includes an X86 "compatibility mode," in Windows 8, in much the same way Microsoft includes a Windows XP mode in Windows 7. Of course, such a mode couldn't run today's demanding software, but there's a whole number of less-powerful legacy apps that could run, albeit a bit more slowly.
And, of course, there are more and more cloud-based and Web-based apps that require a minimum of local processing and storage, including Microsoft's own cloud-based Office apps. If those predominate, the need for a powerful local processor will drop.
And then, of course, the value of a "real PC" would diminish considerably.
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