At various points in its history, Microsoft Windows NT and various descendants have been available on Alpha, MIPS, Itanium and PowerPC, in addition to the more

At various points in its history, Microsoft Windows NT and various descendants have been available on Alpha, MIPS, Itanium and PowerPC, in addition to the more widely-known 32- and 64-bit x86 versions. The Windows Embedded version has been (is?) available for ARM, MIPS, Hitachi SH and x86. There have been some embedded and stripped Windows boxes used for various purposes. Thin clients and storage controllers, for instance. The Windows x86 application market hasn't been interested in the other architectures. This because getting an installed base from x86 to another architecture is No Small Effort, both for Microsoft, and for all of the other organizations that supply or use Windows software. The FX!32 translation services were unsuccessful in encouraging folks to use Windows applications on Alpha, for instance. And if you don't get the installed base moved to your new target, you then get to own the costs of fragmentation and of running what you've brought out. Beyond the references to iOS in the article, I'd also expect this work is in response to Google's Android and HP's WebOS, too. Android establishes the price floor, iOS aims at the revenue (and with a finger-targeted UI), and WebOS is owned by a very large Windows hardware partner. Interesting times for the Microsoft folks.