By: Mark Hachman
LAS VEGAS—Microsoft's partners are undoubtedly pleased with its decision to port future versions of Windows to the ARM architecture. But should consumers be? I'm much less sure.
Rumors of the Windows-ARM partnership slipped out in December, prompting derision from some quarters.
Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division at Microsoft, explained that the decision was made at a time in the development process where Microsoft could accommodate other designs.
"We are making this announcement now to allow greater collaboration across our expanded partner ecosystem so we can bring to market the widest possible set of PCs and devices, from tablets on up, with the next generation of Windows," he said in a published internal Q&A that Microsoft released. "We're at a point in engineering the next release of Windows where we are demonstrating our progress and bringing together an even broader set of partners required to deliver solutions to customers."