Behind Intel’s trash-talking about Windows on ARM

Windows RT, aka Windows on ARM-based devices, is too limited to succeed, say many people who’ve tried out the Windows 8 consumer preview. However, you don’t need an ARM tablet to simulate the Windows RT experience; just stick with the Metro part of Windows 8 on whatever touch device you have. So why is Intel CEO Paul Otellini talking publicly about how the transition from Intel chips to ARM chips for Windows will be such an uphill battle?

The only reason I can surmise is that Intel is very afraid of ARM-based tablets replacing PCs and is therefore publicly attacking the notion in vain hopes to squelch it. Calling attention to your competitor in such a negative manner almost always means you’re scared — and it bolsters interest.

ARM threat goes beyond Microsoft’s Windows RT Intel has very good reason to be afraid, even if Windows RT ends up disappointing many in its first incarnation — which I believe it will. Microsoft’s trajectory with Windows RT is scarily similar to its failing strategy for Windows Phone, on which Windows RT is based. But Microsoft will keep plugging away and may over time make Windows RT simply “Windows” and succeed in its strategy of having Windows run on all sorts of devices, not just PCs.

Apple has already shown the way, with iOS on iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. iOS runs on ARM only, but Apple sells many times the number of iPads as it does Intel-based Macs. Apple has steadily been converging iOS and OS X — after all, iOS started as a subset of OS X. It’s clear to me that Apple will in a few years merge the two operating systems across all its computing devices, letting it scale across them as it already does between iPhones and iPads.

Maybe that converged iOS X, as I call it, will run on both Intel and ARM devices — or maybe Apple will dump Intel. I believe Intel fears such an outcome, and the fact that Apple warned Intel to fix its power-hungry chips a couple years ago, which Intel has now done, served as a wake-up call that Intel could end up dead as a dinosaur if nothing changed. Intel’s Otellini all but admitted that fear, recently telling investors Intel was working on future chips that Apple “couldn’t ignore” for use not only on future Macs but future iPads.

Microsoft’s decision to support ARM in Windows 8 (via the Win RT version) was an even bigger shock to Intel, given that Windows powers 90 percent of all PCs. You can see Intel’s worry: All the growth is in ARM-based tablets and smartphones such as iPads, iPhones, and Android smartphones, and the dominant power in the “legacy” PC market has now legitimized ARM as an Intel alternative.

As no doubt a concession to its longtime partner Intel, Microsoft has essentially crippled ARM-based devices by letting them run only the Metro part of Windows 8, which is what Windows RT really is. But unless the special ARM version of Office that will be bundled with Windows RT is a disaster, the PC will have crossed the ARM Rubicon. The only real question will be when the army reaches Rome — not if.

Between the iPad/iOS X and Windows RT, Intel sees a world based on the rival ARM chips.

Intel’s anti-ARM actions so far have had little impact Intel isn’t stupid, and it’s made several moves to adapt to the world of tablets and other post-PC devices. The problem is that these moves have been half-hearted.

A slow burn for Android on Intel. One move is the effort to port Android to Intel chips, which Intel began two years ago. Really bad Android tablets running on Intel chips and an inferior version of Android port shipped nearly two years ago. Intel got more serious with its decision to port Android 4 “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS) last fall to its low-power “Medfield” Atom CPUs, but that effort has been slow going. It’s not clear why, but I get the strong impression that Google doesn’t really care about Intel’s Android desires, so Intel is kept at the back of the line in terms of support and access to the pseudo-open source Android code.

A few weeks ago, Intel shipped the first “Medfield” Atom smartphones in India, but they don’t run Android ICS yet. The only good news on the Android front for Intel is that “Ice Cream Sandwich” has been creeping at a snail’s pace for everyone, though Google declines to explain why. The fact that Intel is way behind on its Android effort is obscured by ICS’s low availability.

It’s clear that the Android-on-Intel strategy is not the key one to defend Intel’s core chip business. But if Intel can get that going, it’ll help Intel in an area we in North America and Europe rarely consider: the developing world, where PCs are not common but phones are. Intel needs smartphones, whether Android or something else, to use its chips if it wants to be as universal in future computing devices as it is in PCs today.

Ultrabooks try to defend today’s PC turf. The other move is Intel’s Ultrabook specification announced last year. It was directly aimed not at ARM-based tablets but at Apple’s MacBook Air, which had no credible Windows challengers since its 2008 debut.

But make no mistake: The Air is a key part of Apple’s strategy to converge the tablet and the laptop. Someday, iOS X will be able to run the kinds of apps that an Air can do today.

A future Air will be an iPad with an attached keyboard and greater storage capacity, and Intel understood that. It needed to at least push the PC vendors to have comparable hardware for the here and now to lessen the migration of PC users to the Air and, ultimately, to the iPad as a primary device. Because PC makers don’t actually design PCs, just their skins, Intel had to do the heavy lifting to bring PCs to parity with the Air, which meant not just the Core i5 chips they use but all the related motherboard circuitry.

The first Ultrabook laptops were mere pretenders, as Intel allowed already-in-development Air-like clones to use the Ultrabook label last fall for the holiday sales. Buyers weren’t fooled. The real Ultrabooks began shipping this spring using Intel’s optimized circuitry to match the power savings, quick boot times, and other advantages Apple had brought to the Air. The “real” Ultrabooks are nice laptops, but they don’t advance the laptop category — just keep up with what Apple had already done.

A “stick with the PC” strategy that requires Windows RT to fail What the Ultrabooks might do for Intel is reduce the number of people tempted by both Windows RT tablets and Apple’s ARM-oriented universe. The pitch for both an Ultrabook and the so-called convertibles that will ship this fall, which are Ultrabooks with detachable screens, turning them into tablets, is that you have a full PC when you need it and a post-PC experience when you want. Why carry an iPad and a MacBook Air — or “regular” Windows laptop — when you can carry just a Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, or Dell convertible instead?

Intel can pull off that promise on the hardware engineering side, and the key PC makers can deliver at least some models that will keep Windows users in the PC camp despite the siren call of a MacBook Air, for which new models will debut this fall if history is any guide. But Intel needs Windows RT to fail for that strategy to work.

Remember, Windows RT doesn’t run the Windows we all know today — that is, the Windows 7 experience and all of its software. Users may discover they don’t need the legacy after all. Most of us use just Office, a Web browser, and an email client, which Windows RT tablets will offer, as do iPads as long as you don’t need Microsoft’s version of Office. If so, they’ll move quickly in the consumer market to Windows RT tablets or other post-PC forms — and/or iPads. Both categories use ARM chips. Businesses will eventually follow.

That’s why Intel’s CEO is so scared about ARM that he’s publicly critiquing it. Intel doesn’t have Apple’s advantage of designing its entire ecosystem, which lets it control its destiny and pace of change. Intel has to work with Microsoft, HP, Dell, and dozens of other tech companies, and that takes time — time Intel is running low on.

This article, “Behind Intel’s trash-talking about Windows on ARM,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com. Follow Galen’s mobile musings on Twitter at MobileGalen. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.