There are some interesting takes on the future of PCs, and then there’s Warren East’s take on the future of PCs. East is the CEO of ARM, which produces processors for mobile products, which offers good power and low energy consumption. According to East, not only will ARM processors become commonplace in the netbook market, but that the netbook market will come to represent 90 percent of the PC industry.
What’s particularly amazing about East’s projection of the future is that ARM’s processors lack Windows support. It’s going to be a pretty tough transition to ARM processors if they can’t run the dominate operating system for PCs.
Not a problem, says East. Yes, people love their Windows, but, he says, “the trajectory of progress in the Linux world is very, very impressive. I think it’s only a matter of time for ARM to gain market share with or without Microsoft.” So Linux, which currently has a market share smaller than Apple, is going to topple the Windows behemoth.
That’s not the only option, speculates Slashgear. It might be that the threat of Linux will force Microsoft to change--and rework Windows so it will support non-x86 hardware. Slashgear points to Texas Instruments’ OMAP4, NVIDIA’s Tegra 2, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, in addition to ARM, as hints of a non-Intel/AMD future. Microsoft may have to adapt or die.
And ARM has an advantage over the Intel-Microsoft option: it’s cheaper. Because of cost efficiencies, Robert Castellano of Seeking Alpha, predicts ARM processors will have a 55 percent share of the netbook market by 2012.
East may be onto something here. But if it comes to pass, what will gamers be left with? It’s hard to imaging running Crysis, at any frame rate, on a netbook--even one from the future.
