The new ARM tablets which run the Windows 8 operating system will not run the current Microsoft desktop apps for personal computers, according to Stephen Sinofsky, the president of Windows Unit of Microsoft.
“We’ve been very clear since the very first Consumer electronic Show (CES) demos and forward that the ARM product won’t run any x86 applications,” Information Week quoted Stephen Sinofsky as saying.
Earlier at the Build Conference, Microsoft had showed two devices, one with Windows 8 running on x86 processors and another prototype ARM tablet which was running pre-beta software.
“The challenge is very interesting. If we allow the world of x86 application support like that, or based on what we call desktop apps(like MS word and excel) in our start yesterday, then there are real challenges in some of the value proposition for [ARM] System on a Chip,” Sinofsky said. “Will battery life be as good, for example? Those applications aren’t written to be really great in the face of limited battery constraints, which is a value proposition of the Metro-style apps.”
In another related news, it was reported that the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 will not have the Flash Browser plug in. So the Windows 8 platform joins the other platforms which are favouring HTML5 over Flash.