It boggles my mind Microsoft didn't get into the custom ARM chip design game years ago like Google, Amazon, etc. I imagine it's far too late now especially with the state of the semiconductor and supply chain world. Good luck betting your future on Qualcomm, hope it works out.
Edit: This is so incomprehensibly late it's just embarrassing. It's been 2 presidencies. Qualcomm had an exclusivity contract for Windows on ARM for literally half a decade (2016-2021) which they did absolutely nothing of significance with. And if 2024 is their year, it will be 4 years after M1. Yikes. Not to mention the lawsuit between themselves and ARM Holdings over whether Nuvia's designs are legitimate, which could delay things further. Nuvia had better be like pulling a rabbit out of a hat when it arrives.
Edit 2: @beembeem Right... shutters. 8 years in the sense of modern Windows with some 32-bit Intel app compatibility. But as for ARM as a whole... Windows RT and Windows CE before it...
I don't blame Qualcomm as much as I blame Microsoft. They tried to use the transition to ARM to lockdown and smartphonize PCs. There were at least two attempts to bring out a restricted, store only version of Windows (Windows RT and Windows 10 S). But what's the point of Windows when you can't use the majority of existing Windows software? ARM and x86 differences are bad enough, but they had to artificially add more barriers.
I still use my Surface RT for videos on car trips. It has a USB port, a 16:9 screen and can run (a very old version of) VLC. I wouldn't have paid money for it, but I got it for free.
A rumor I heard somewhere - MS supposedly built x86 emulation for ARM a few years back, and created a demo on top of some vendor's ARM servers for transparent Azure x86 on ARM (in addition to regular ARM VM SKUs of course).
But rather than move forward with this as a public offering on Azure, they used it to put the squeeze on Intel/AMD, and they got rock-bottom price on hardware in return for holding-off on ARM adoption.
Sounds like someone may have gotten a massive bonus that year, but may have significantly delayed any ARM efforts on Azure...
It’s possible they’re worried about antitrust litigation if they take over the entire stack. At this point in time I don’t think it would be warranted given all their competitors are doing similarly, but given MS’ experience of the 90/00s I can see they may be cautious.
