QuoteThe actual number of native applications remains small, and details on the new Prism x64 emulator remain scant. Unless the emulator is able to greatly expand Windows on ARM compatibility and performance of x64 apps and drivers, the latest CoPilot+ laptops will likely remain a niche product for the office worker who isn't using much more than Microsoft Office, Outlook, and Teams for their daily tasks.
Thank you. So many of the reviews I've been reading seem to be desperately trying to avoid this issue.
Most software is unlikely to be ported to ARM until (and if) enough people buy into it. So if anyone is relying on third tier software or drivers, it's going to be running in emulation or translated code. Even Apple who has a LONG history of this (this is their third try 68000 -> PowerPC -> Intel -> ARM) has some issues with translated code and they can literally tell their developer community and their customers what platform they need to switch to. Microsoft can't.
Worse (for Microsoft), the one big "payoff", at least in their minds, is Copilot+ and that's Win 11 only - which is tanking big time and ONLY on ARM until the fall since Microsoft literally stiffed Intel and AMD by setting the minimum NPU requirements to 40TOPs after they released new chips with NPUs at 10-15 TOPs.
The reality is that it should come as absolutely no surprise that Windows on ARM will run ARM software about as good as Windows on Intel/AMD will run x64 software. But that's not actually enough a selling point to get people to toss their x64 hardware and not one OEN (including Microsoft) has gone 100% ARM, which means devs have to support BOTH platforms.
As a dev I can tell you, supporting multiple platforms has a real cost, and unless there's enough sales you tend to drop the platform. I can also tell you, businesses do NOT rewrite LOB software until they have absolutely no choice. Notice that the Business models of these two Surfaces are X64???
And everyone keeps forgetting - this isn't even the first time Microsoft tried this. I know the tech press is paying rent to Apple for space up Apple's backside, but they we're the first to go ARM - Microsoft was with the Surface RT
ten years ago. It was a colossal flop exactly because all you could run was Office.
If ARM fans want to promote this platform, get one, test the hell out it using off the shelf commercial and OSS x64 AND x32 software and prove that it's up to running it at close to normal speeds with no glitches. Then people will accept it as a compatible equivalent, not a weird, risky toy.
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