The paradigm shift has begun. HTML5 is replacing Adobe Flash on mobile devices. And it’s not looking so great for Microsoft’s Silverlight either. (Well, if you ever thought it looked okay for Silverlight on mobile in the first place.)

There are a number of reasons for this, but the main long and short of it comes down to these factors:

1) ARM isn’t just ARM

Unlike x86 and such, each ARM core is somewhat different, and as a result Adobe got tired of trying to support them all with its Flash Player. The constant code tweaks were just more costly than the benefit of Flash on mobile devices.

2) i allow you not

Companies of certain mobile devices (Take a wild guess which one, Apple!) have rather objected to technologies like Adobe Flash on their phones and tablets and locked them out. Whereas HTML5 is for everyone.

3) Power to the people

Studies into usage of Adobe Flash on mobile devices have also shown it to be a power hog compared to HTML5. And since no one likes a dead battery…

So it’s official, of sorts. Adobe has no plans to release an update to their Flash Player beyond version 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry devise. Though while Flash for the PC will likely remain, one has to wonder how long it actually will once everyone starts catering to mobile devices by switching to HTML5 there.

Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn’t actually said that the same will become true of their Silverlight software. (Does anyone even use Silverlight in the first place?) That however hasn’t stopped people from drawing the same logical conclusion, that Silverlight’s days are equally numbered. Of course that the only mobile version of Silverlight is for the Microsoft Windows Phone 7, not exactly a market-shattering alternative to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, it’s entirely possible that Microsoft is too oblivious of the concept of multiplatform to understand it need not bother supporting Silverlight at all. In fact, Windows 8 on ARM doesn’t support Silverlight at all. Metro (the name for mobile-centric portion of the schizophrenic Windows 8 ) doesn’t do Silverlight. The PC-side of Windows 8 does. But the writing is very much on the wall for mobile Silverlight.

So frankly, for web development, if you’re not looking at porting to HTML5, you probably should be, because it won’t be long before you really don’t have a choice. Unless you think all of those people are going to put down their phones and lug around a laptop instead.

So here is where the circus meets the professional. I’m tired of crappy phones with their dinky apps and their cloudy touchy-feely internet-is-all-encompassing malarkey. What I want is real mobile computing. I want to run the same software that I do on my computer at work and at home. I want full-blown Microsoft Office. (Or OpenOffice. Or LibreOffice.) I want full-blown Adobe Photoshop. (Or GIMP.) I want the real internet. I want a real version of Windows. I want real software. I want the real deal.

No more freaking apps!

I’m tired of PDA-like behavior from my smartphone. Seriously people, my Palm Pilot wasn’t good enough then, and cellphones killed off its advancement years ago. Only, they haven’t advanced significantly in its place. Smartphones now still can only just barely do what PDAs did way back when.

Since freaking Y2K we’ve been able to put an x86 PC into a pocket. It’s over a decade later, and we somehow can’t put a full PC into a smartphone?!?!?!

Yes, it’s going to be slower than a good laptop, which is already slower than a desktop PC. I get that. I can be patient. I can wait for my application to load. Especially if it’s a real application and not just an app. Really. It’s okay!

Yes, battery life may be a bit tricky. Though, honestly, I really don’t think it should be as bad as some make it out to be. Put in a slightly larger batter for starters. And continue improving the technology to use less power. There’s nothing new here. But if you don’t start somewhere, you’ll never be sufficiently motivated to iteratively improve the design.

And honestly, with good drivers, even Windows has been stable enough to run 24×7 lately. And that’s without some fancy new not-entirely-asleep sleep mode that updates things periodically while asleep. And there’s always Linux. Heck, my cellphone has needed a reboot more often than my PC has!

So it’s about flirking time that someone brings a full x86-capable (with PCI bus) solution to the smartphone. Really. It was about time half a decade ago! It’s way beyond about time now.

I don’t care if it’s Intel. They’re certainly poised well to do it. They have the technology, just not the cojones, apparently.

I don’t care if it’s AMD. After their acquisition of ATi there’s no reason that they couldn’t do it with their own SoC. And while Intel is fiddle-farting around with x86 smartphones without a PCI bus, there’s a big freaking opportunity here to take the market right out from under them. They’d even deserve it too!

Heck, even nVidia ought to be able to make a chipset for an Intel Atom that includes the PCI bus. nVidia used to make good chipsets. (And, of course, they’re great at other stuff too, like graphics.) And they’ve come to some kind of agreement with Intel again, right?

As much as it pains me to say it, at this point, I’d even consider something from freaking VIA! And I’ve never used a VIA product that I didn’t hate. They bring unstable to a whole new level! But even they are positioned to make an x86 smartphone that can run Windows.

Someone, already, geeze!

It’s bad enough that tablets are barely even getting there, but by now we really should have an x86-based full-Windows-running phone.

I’d say thank goodness that Fujitsu finally gave us one with the F-07C, except that oh, wait, it’s only available in Japan. 

I was recently catching up on reading about the Intel Atom architecture, or more specifically, about Moorestown and Medfield, and I have to say that Nokia’s ditching of Intel and Intel’s Moblin (married to Nokia’s Maemo through the new joint venture of MeeGo) for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 almost starts to actually make sense. And this from someone who loves developing software in Qt!

And it all comes down to one simple reason: Intel doesn’t know what they’re doing.

I know. It’s hard to believe. But really, it’s true!

Why do I say that? Because even with Medfield, Intel is still missing the PCI bus in their System on a Chip (SoC). Why is this important, you ask? Because operating systems like Windows still require a PCI bus being present to work. Which means that even though Medfield is bringing the Intel Atom CPU (along with graphics, sound, camera, memory, etc.) to the smartphone / tablet world, it has completely missed the bus (Har har!) of being able to run a full-out real OS like Windows.

Now it remains somewhat unclear to me if Linux can be made to run without the PCI bus. Being Linux, you would think it could. In fact I’m pretty darn sure it can be done.  Honestly, I’m not sure why Windows absolutely needs a PCI bus, frankly.  Maybe just some bad assumptions and Windows is too heavy weight to change?

But then why did Ubuntu Mobile development come to a halt? Why did Nokia ditch working with Intel on MeeGo and switch to befriending Microsoft of all things? Anecdotally, it suggests that Linux, in fact may not be so happy without the PCI bus either. Or that there’s some kind of difficulty involved. Frankly, I’m not sure even I believe this.  It sounds like FUD.  Especially as Linux has been ported to all sorts of small devices with micro kernels.  But one does have to wonder why this keeps happening to mobile-centric versions of Linux, an OS known for being ported to everything and anything.  It is an odd mystery what is up with Linux there.

And will Microsoft address this PCI bus dependency in Windows 8 if they’re already trying to port it to ARM for tablet use?

But so if that’s the reason these Linux variations keep getting abandoned (and that’s a mighty big if, I do admit), then Nokia’s freakout might actually start to almost make some sense. (Beyond simple Microsoftian funding, the almighty dollar.)  What would be the point of bringing x86 to the smartphone if you couldn’t actually run your OS on it so that you can continue to use the same applications that you do at work or at home on your computer? If you’re eternally stuck with just apps instead of real applications, then why bother to deviate from ARM in the first place? Granted, it’s still a true-enough thought process for Windows alone. Maybe Nokia just wasn’t convinced that Linux is any good on a smartphone? (Though after buying Trolltech, I’d find that really hard to believe.)

This could also, by the way, be the whole reason why Intel developed Moblin. Because if their choice to avoid the PCI bus when bringing everything else from an x86 PC into a smartphone prevented them from running an already available OS, then they would pretty much have to create their own operating system to run this deficient x86-almost-PC. That or wait for Google to port Android from ARM to x86-sans-PCI. Or wait even longer for Microsoft to do something.

Or, try to cram all of the separate chips for a full-blown Atom-based PC into a tiny smartphone package, a task not easily done!  Hence the need for a simple (and small!) SoC instead of separate chips.

Okay, so I get that from a power-saving perspective, the PCI bus isn’t ideal. And so it’d eat into a smartphone’s battery life. I get that. To an extent. I mean it’s not like they’re missing from laptops, netbooks, and UMPCs (like the Viliv S5 that can fit in your pocket) which are also run on batteries. Surely someone could think of some nifty power-saving way to put PCI bus support into a smartphone SoC like Medfield … if they had their head on straight.

But, alas, no. That’s what Intel’s Oak Trail is for: Atom in netbooks and tablets. That can run Windows.

Not smartphones though.  Because it’s not one SoC, it’s many chips.

Is anyone else confused?

What in the world is Intel thinking?

How do I even put this in a way that makes sense…

Okay. So Intel’s focus here is on crushing ARM. Intel is tired of missing out on this hugely growing market. Smartphones are the new sugar rush and everyone wants their candy. Intel can’t afford to neglect this market any longer. (Or any longer than they already have done by twiddling their thumbs while testing the waters instead of just boldly going forward and setting trends.)

ARM, a competing processor architecture, is frankly just nowhere near as mature as x86. It may be low power, but it’s also lesser in functionality. This is why your smartphones only run apps instead of full-blown applications. (Well, the main reason anyway. Apple’s strict near-fascist software development regime is another matter entirely and really only applies to their products.) ARM might be great for phones, but not for computers. Not yet at least. Maybe not even ever. Only time will tell there.  Though certainly many would try to debate the point, from both sides.  Honestly, I don’t care either way so long as at the end of the day I have full-blown OS and application software and a compiler to make my own software with.

But so Intel wants into the market that ARM is massively consuming. What do they do? Do they use all of the great versatility and advanced features of their x86 Atom line to show how you can make a smartphone truly smart?

No.

Instead Intel works hard on making a super-low-power x86 Atom-based solution for smartphones so that their answer to ARM has the same (or better) battery life.

That’s it.

That’s all Intel is doing. They have effectively dumbed down the PC to make it as useless as a smartphone. Instead of upping the smartphone to the capabilities of a PC.

So here’s a wild analogy for you: Say you’re a hunter. Say you’re hunting wild boar, a powerful and respected creature in its own right. It may be smaller than man, but it’s fast, agile, and has big sharp tusks. Do you, the hunter, get on your hands and knees and chase around the wild boar tooth-to-tusk? Of course not! You’ll get shredded! That’d be downright daft to fight a wild boar on its own terms. No, you, the hunter, get out your spear, or your bow, or your gun, and you take the wild boar down with your superior technology.

Intel, get off your darned hands and knees, stop trying to out-bite the boar, and pick up a gun already! Or the ARM boar is just going to continue to gore you in the face!

Microsoft would like to remind us that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 support has ended, and if you’d like support on Vista, you really should upgrade (for free) from SP1 to SP2. It’s easy. Just run Windows Update.

Or, better yet, upgrade to Windows 7. (Microsoft’s suggestion, not mine. See?)

As self-serving as Microsoft’s suggestion of upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 may be, I find myself in the rare position of actually agreeing with them on that. Yes, it costs money, but let’s face it, Windows Vista is a joke. It’s Windows ME2. Do you really want to be stuck on it?

Well, your choice. Either way, Microsoft’s point is that Windows Vista SP1 is officially dead to them.

No surprises there, as Microsoft probably wishes everyone would just forget that Windows Vista ever existed. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if support of Windows Vista ended with Service Pack 2 and Windows XP actually outlived it!

Speaking of, if you’re one of those people holding on to dear life to Windows XP (and I even fall into that category to some extent) the Windows XP support will end… One day… Maybe… If it isn’t extended again. I guess over in MS World, now that Windows 7 has finally given people something stable and usable to upgrade to (since Windows Vista failed miserably on that front) we’re all supposed to upgrade to Windows 7. (Except for those of us who can’t, of course.)

Here’s the really odd thing though. Microsoft claims that Windows XP will indeed die. It has less than 1000 days less of its extended support. Officially, on the 8th of April, 2014, Microsoft will no longer provide security patches, hotfixes, etc. for any version of Windows XP. I get that. It’s something of a bummer for those of us using it on low-powered low-memory laptops and netbooks where Windows 7 is a less-than-convincing “upgrade”, leaving us … well, SoL. Not to mention those of us just keeping old PCs alive! It’d be one thing if Windows 7 could actually run as well as Windows XP on an old or budget system, but it’s another thing entirely when it can’t, and in even more cases where Windows 7 can’t be installed on the box at all!

But things take an even stranger turn, because along come the rumors and innuendo of Windows 8. Microsoft exec Tami Reller just told folks at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 that if a PC could run Windows 7, it could also run Windows 8. It’s an assurance to PC makers (and consumers) that anyone who is running Windows 7 now will be able to upgrade easily to Windows 8. You won’t have to worry about memory or processor speed at all. (Which could be a Microsoft first since it left the concept of Windows as a DOS shell behind!)

However, that raises an odd question in my mind: What about the army of folks still on Windows XP? Can they upgrade to Windows 8?

Why do I ask that?

Why do I think that they even could if they can’t upgrade to Windows 7?

Simple!

Windows 8, supposedly, will not just be available for your PC, but also for your ARM-based tablet! And let’s face it, Android tablets are not running Windows 7 for a reason. (Well, a couple of them.) It’s not just a matter of ARM vs. x86, but also of resources. Linux and Linux-based OSes such as Meego, sure. Windows 7? Nuh-uh!

And Intel is still pushing hard for Atom to replace ARM in Android tablet manufacturer’s minds. Will it? I doubt it. It’s like swatting a fly with a … hardcover book. But a Windows 7 tablet, that’d be spiffy … if it could run faster than molasses in January. Which it can’t. (I would know, as I have an Atom-based tablet. I technically can install, but if I thought it was already slow running Windows XP…)

But if Windows 8 could run well on low resources like on a tablet?

Because let’s face it, Windows is a resource hog compared to Android or iOS as an operating system goes. We’re even seeing some grumbling from WebOS tablet users that the OS itself is sluggish. The performance of the OS on a dinky little tablet processor makes a world of difference. One that Windows 7 just can’t even try to compete. So if Microsoft wants people to actually bother putting Windows 8 on tablets, it’s going to have to trim up that kernel. Will Windows 8 be split into two worlds: PC running kernel-heavy like Windows always is and tablet running kernel-lite like Windows CE or Windows PHONE 7? Or will Windows 8 actually be lean by design and work for anyone and everyone equally well with the same kernel for all?

If the latter then it would be a Microsoft first! Which makes me very doubtful.

But it would be an extremely welcome change, especially as a lightweight kernel from Microsoft that still ran PC software might even just give all of those aging computers running Windows XP an actual upgrade path! If Microsoft were interested in listening to what customers want (instead of just telling us what we need) Windows 8 could possibly be the savior of Windows XP users who would like to upgrade, if only Microsoft would make an OS that they could actually upgrade to.

I wouldn’t hold my breath on it though. Because that just isn’t the Microsoft way of doing things. Even if it would make sense. And sales. Lots and lots of sales.

If you’re a CPU enthusiast, chances are you’ve heard by now that Microsoft is planning on releasing Windows 8 on x86 and on ARM. Which tablet manufacturers will be relatively happy with. But you, the consumer, not so much.

It reminds me of the old days, back when RISC and x86 were throwing punches. Back then you could take a RISC-based processor like the DEC Alpha and run Windows on it, as Microsoft did indeed support it … with a special version of NT at least. But a fat lot of good that would actually do you. Applications not directly built for the Alpha’s architecture were set to run in a compatibility mode, which rarely worked. In fact most installers wouldn’t even install. So you could have Windows on your non-x86 processor, but you couldn’t get many applications.

And now Intel is pointing out that (besides them not going into the ARMs race) just because Windows 8 runs on ARM doesn’t mean that your “legacy” applications will. Or even that new applications will. Only applications built to directly support the ARM architecture in use will be guaranteed to run on that ARM version of Windows.  And how many different versions of ARM will there be for that matter?

It’s a no-brainer to a software or hardware engineer.

But it’s not something that most end-users are likely to grasp right away. Not until they’ve purchased software that won’t work on their Windows+ARM tablet. Then, maybe, they’ll start reading the little compatibility section on the software box. Maybe.

You can be sure that not every software producer will bother supporting ARM. Most in fact likely won’t, at least not until ARM proves itself. Which many (like Intel) question if it even can, as the architecture is no where near as refined as x86 is these days. It’s rather like going back in time.

So one day you may be able to get yourself an ARM-based tablet running Windows, but it’ll be bare of actual software. And other than (hopefully) a few Windows essentials like Microsoft Office, and some gimmicky apps, it’ll likely remain that way. In fact you’ll be more likely to see those wacky open-source projects supporting ARM than you will professional software products.  And games?  Nuh-uh.

Microsoft of course vehemently objects to this reality portrayed by spokespersons of the likes of Intel. But in attempting to substitute their own reality, Microsoft has yet to actually state how this will in any way play out differently than it has in the past that we’ve already seen when Microsoft met RISC. Just calling someone a big fat liar doesn’t actually mean that their pants are indeed on fire.

And meanwhile, Intel – and others – continue to develop low-power all-inclusive micro-platforms for x86, like the Intel Atom, capable of running just as well and close to as cheaply in tablet form as ARM, while natively supporting all of your Windows (or Linux, or potentially even Mac as that’s done on x86 these days) software. (The same can be said of micro-servers as well.)

Which raises an obvious question: If you can make a full-blown x86 Windows tablet affordably and effective, then why would anyone want some gimmicky ARM tablet with limited software capabilities????

With or without Microsoft Windows 8.

Heck, give me my x86-based Linux or Windows cellphone running a full-blown OS and I’ll never care about ARM again. ARM has its places, but unlike the x86/RISC war of the past, ARM is not as suited to modern computing as x86 this time around. ARM still needs a lot of work just to catch up. Or, frankly, maybe it’s just better to leave it in the smaller less-intensive devices that it’s already in and we can just call it a day without repeating history. But then, I guess, where would be the fun in that?

So Microsoft will no doubt continue on the path to ARMing Windows for bare. And when customers don’t have any ARM-compatible software to install on their ARM-Windows products, Intel will certainly be smirking with an, “I told you so,” right on the tip of the tongue. And Microsoft, will, of course, blame everyone but themselves.

Which makes me wonder… What ever did happen to that old DEC Alpha Windows NT4 machine that used to gather dust under my desk? And did any of those third-party ActiveX control and MFC/C++ compatible library developers ever get around to supporting the Alpha? They claimed they would as soon as Microsoft did. Oh how little they knew…