The project was abandoned as unsuccessful and fundamentally incomplete, as it did not support traditional x86 Win32 software. With Windows 10, however, everything changes. The new Snapdragon chip devices will support every aspect of the operating system, from Microsoft Office to Edge, to video games. The ARM platform will also be able to interface without problems with peripherals and other hardware.
The most important thing is that users will be able to use Universal Windows Platform (UWP) software and especially x86 Win32 programs through emulation. Yes, there is an emulator built into Windows 10 that will allow traditional programs, such as the classic Photoshop, to run smoothly on the ARM platform.
The emulator is currently unable to handle x64 variants of software, but that's not a big deal because most of the programs are still 32-bit. Microsoft has not explained precisely how emulation works, but it is rumored that it loads the processor very little, preserving performance.
Waiting for the first Windows 10 products with Snapdragon chip in the second half of next year, many will be wondering why Microsoft took this step and what it means.
ARM is the reference platform for the mobile world and is growing in every sector. AMD is also working on a custom ARM chip, codenamed K12. In addition to increasing performance, ARM chips have proven to be at the forefront of two fundamental aspects: connectivity and low power consumption.
ARM chips therefore have all the credentials to spread at the expense of x86 solutions from Intel and AMD. For this reason Microsoft, whose ultimate purpose is simply to spread its ecosystem everywhere, opens up to the Qualcomm platform, also instrumental in its strategy of creating a cohesive ecosystem that includes traditional PCs, mobile products and smartphones.
If at the moment we are only talking about mobile products, many will be wondering: will we also see desktop PCs with ARM processors and Windows 10 in the future? It's hard to say today, but Qualcomm is working on high-powered multi-core ARM processors for the server sector and we believe it could also adapt them to the world of traditional computers if it wanted to.
However, it would have to find support from other hardware manufacturers - motherboards, etc. - and currently it is much less complex to focus on notebooks, where the internal hardware is much more similar to that of smartphones and tablets.
