Microsoft demonstrated at a press conference on January 5 the “next version of Windows” running on ARM processors, as many Microsoft watchers had been expecting.

At the press conference — held a few hours before CEO Steve Ballmer will keynote the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) — Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinofsky showed off an early build of Windows 8 runnong on new systems-on-a-chip (SoC) platforms from NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments on ARM. To prove Microsoft isn’t abandonning the x86 architecture with Windows 8, company officials also showed off Windows 8 running on x86 SOC.

Rumors that Microsoft would show off Windows 8 running on ARM have been circulating for the past couple of weeks. Earlier this week, TechFlash reported that Microsoft had cut deals with the aforementioned ARM chip makers, which will enable Windows 8 to run on ARM-based systems once the next release of Microsoft’s operating system is available.

CES: Microsoft shows off Windows 8 on ARM | ZDNet

Posted By: JMH
05 Jan 2011