“In a clarification, a Microsoft executive said applications built to run on the tablet version of Windows 8 won’t be compatible with the desktop version of the operating system,” Paul McDougall reports for InformationWeek. “The executive also said that the tablet version won’t be able run any applications built for previous versions of Windows.”
“‘We’ve been very clear since the very first CES demos and forward that the ARM product won’t run any x86 applications,’ said Stephen Sinofsky, president of Microsoft Windows unit, during a meeting with financial analysts Wednesday,” McDougall reports. “Windows 8 for tablets runs on devices powered by chips designed by U.K.-based ARM. The desktop version runs on traditional, x86 chips from Intel and AMD.”
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McDougall reports, “Sinofsky’s comments came a day after he implied that apps for the tablet and desktop versions of Windows 8 would be cross-compatible. ‘The demos we are showing you today are equally at home on ARM or x86,’ Sinofsky said, during a keynote presentation at Microsoft’s BUILD conference in Anaheim, Calif. But at the meeting with analysts, Sinofsky said cross-compatibility would not be practical because apps need to be optimized to take full advantage of the hardware on which they’re intended to run.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: With each passing day, the mirage evaporates.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
