I saw this story on slashdot about the ARM CPU being used on the next class of netbooks. I was really expecting that Apple would use the CPU on their recently announced iPad. Instead, they went for a proprietary in-house CPU.

Background

The ARM CPU is already used in devices such as these devices:

There has been some buzz that ARM powered netbooks will appear in a big way, especially in the netbook space. So far, nothing has appeared. If it does materialize, then this would be a very interesting development because these devices' primary OS is linux and Microsoft would be hard-pressed to usurp its dominance on that architecture.  Linux runs on a wide variety of CPU architectures, including ARM; Windows is Intel only.

Nipping Linux-based netbooks in the bud...

Microsoft was already being squeezed by Linux's potential use on netbook class PCs. In response to the threat posed by these low priced computers, such as the ASUS eee, Microsoft reportedly lowered the price and extended the life Windows XP. This seems to have worked and snipped some of Linux's newly gained marketshare in the bud. ASUS and other manufacturers have reverted to using XP, and removed Linux. MS did this at some cost to them- almost giving the OS away. Some rumors put the price to regain the marketshare at between $5 and $15 per copy of XP. That is a far cry from the $50 to $150 dollars per XP copy that they have been accustomed to getting.

One irony that may come back to bite Microsoft is that is that Windows NT derivatives run on Intel CPU's only. Microsoft phased out support for other CPU architectures beginning with NT4. This was due to Intel's dominant market position. However, WinNT was originally developed for multiple CPU architectures including:

Now, Windows flagship OS currently runs on these architectures: