
"The Intel Atom processor line is associated with low power usage in devices such as a netbook or nettop computer. The emphasis is definitely not on performance, it's on pushing up battery life on a device with a small display and mid-range graphics requirements while still managing a decent desktop experience. Microsoft thinks Atom can do more, though, and wants to use it in servers. With that in mind it is calling on Intel to
up the cores in an Atom chip to 16, and deploying it as a low power server chip solution."
Member since:
2005-07-12
I think the whole reason behind this is application availability.
It's a known fact that Microsoft's closest competitor in the server market is Linux. One of the major advantages Linux has over Windows on ARM is the availability native and kind-of-highly-portable applications, that include most of it's software stack, from core OS functionality like GNU-Base to KDE/Gnome desktop to all the server tools we've all grown to know and love/hate. Most those are just a recompile away.
Windows on the other hand, and all things being as they are today, needs an emulation layer to run on ARM all the x86 binaries which comprise the vast majority of it's software stack. This will significantly reduce the benefit and viability of choosing Windows as a desktop or server platform on non x86 systems, but it's particularly bad for the server side of things. God knows how many companies are still running mid 90s versions of Oracle or Dbase or whatnot.
It's in Microsoft's best interest to see that Atom triumphs over ARM as the dominant server chip because it effectively denies the Linux/OSS portability advantage.
My 2 cents.