XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: ahlstromc@xzoozy.com   
      
   Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:   
      
   > In message , Chris Ahlstrom wrote:   
   >   
   >> Microsoft will simply co-opt the ARM tablet market through sweet-seeming   
   >> OEM deals and some plain old browbeating, push the hardware to become more   
   >> and more powerful, and larger and larger, until it moves out of the tablet   
   >> arena, thus all but killing the market.  Just like it did with the small   
   >> netbooks.   
   >   
   > But they haven???t been able to do that so far. Remember ARM has been around   
   > for 20-something years, and Microsoft???s ongoing Windows Mobile failures   
   > aren???t much younger than that. They simply cannot control the ARM market;   
   if   
   > they could, they would have done so already.   
      
   They don't have to control the ARM market, just the tablet market.   
      
   As ZnU noted, Microsoft's current bulky tablets are mostly ignored. But they   
   don't kill the laptop market, because hitherto the tablet market was   
   considered niche.   
      
   Apple's iPad definitely has changed that, and Android is helping seed an   
   even bigger tablet market.  If Microsoft had been ready, they'd be actively   
   co-opting it right now.   
      
   --   
   Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and   
   greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any   
   moment.  They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that   
   systems could be virtual at *___all* levels.  They would like personal   
   computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your   
   DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their   
   Correctness Verification Aid packages.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)