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ARM can win even if it doesn't have the capability to penetrate the PC market right now. As PC margins shrink more and more, Intel's situation looks more and mo

ARM can win even if it doesn't have the capability to penetrate the PC market right now. As PC margins shrink more and more, Intel's situation looks more and more precarious. Gaming CPUs are only a tiny sliver of the market, and one that is not nearly as profitable as mobile. This is great for consumers, by the way: we're long overdue for healthy competition in the CPU market. ARM is not an open architecture, so it's not ideal, but at least the various licensees compete with each other, which is an improvement over what we have with Intel. > And until that happens my original point was: business software, operating systems, etc., have been written and / or optimized for the x86 platform so much so and said software is so pervasive that leaving x86 will take a revolution or a big player to push, again maybe Apple. The operating systems that matter are all ported to ARM. And perhaps the most important consumer OS today--Android--has virtually no x86 penetration. In 2017, looking at the overall market, ARM has the advantage in terms of software compatibility, not x86.

pjmlp 9y ago
I believe the move to bytecode based formats in mobile OSes and even on OS X and UWP will make this more relevant. Using such mainframe model, makes the actual processor only relevant to the OS vendors or the developers using "down to the metal" toolchains. Which is something that obviously weakens Intel's position.
- gigatexal 9y ago
  Oh yeah I had forgotten that point. Apple developers ship bytecode to the app store right? And then when it downloads it is specific to the phone or device, I think. Yeah that would make things a lot easier to move. So if Apple ever made another arch change like they did from PowerPC to x86 this could forgo the need for the RosettaStone translation stuff.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    It is still optional on the phone and tv, but it is the official way on the watch.
gigatexal 9y ago
You bring up a good point. I think your hinting to the server space when you bring up the shrinking margins in the PC space. And the server space already has some shipping hardware so I think that's what might pose an existential threat to Intel

pjmlp 9y ago

I believe the move to bytecode based formats in mobile OSes and even on OS X and UWP will make this more relevant. Using such mainframe model, makes the actual processor only relevant to the OS vendors or the developers using "down to the metal" toolchains. Which is something that obviously weakens Intel's position.

gigatexal 9y ago
Oh yeah I had forgotten that point. Apple developers ship bytecode to the app store right? And then when it downloads it is specific to the phone or device, I think. Yeah that would make things a lot easier to move. So if Apple ever made another arch change like they did from PowerPC to x86 this could forgo the need for the RosettaStone translation stuff.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  It is still optional on the phone and tv, but it is the official way on the watch.

gigatexal 9y ago

You bring up a good point. I think your hinting to the server space when you bring up the shrinking margins in the PC space. And the server space already has some shipping hardware so I think that's what might pose an existential threat to Intel