Just How Old is Windows on ARM? Older Than the iPad

EXIF data gives away just how long Microsoft has been working on an ARM-based tablet.

Something tells me Microsoft will be checking the EXIF data on images from now on.

Windows chief Steven Sinofsky posted a lengthy blog update on February 9 discussing the Windows on ARM (dubbed "WOA") project. Sinofsky went on at great length about a number of ARM-related issues, which I will get into.

One little tidbit was revealed by accident. Long Zheng, the Australian blogger who runs I Started Something noticed a pair of pictures in the blog showing Windows running on an ARM device and decided to look at the photo properties. And there you see the date if you grab the photos yourself: 1/20/2010, 1:51 PM.

In other words, WOA pre-dates the announcement of the iPad.

So how come Microsoft didn't announce WOA until a year later at CES 2011? I can speculate on all kinds of reasons. For starters, that was one more year of development, to make sure it could work. Remember the CES where Ballmer showed off an HP tablet running Windows 7, and the thing was iced within weeks? Then there was the Courier tablet mess. He didn't need that embarrassment again.

At the same time, Microsoft undoubtedly had a connection to ARM and its major OEMs, like Nvidia, Marvell and Qualcomm, and knew it needed to be patient and wait.

If nothing else, it's a major shift from the old days, when Microsoft would announce it planned to make a product that a competitor was planning just to kill a competitor's momentum. You can go all the way back to 1983, when VisiCorp and Quarterdeck announced GUIs for DOS and Microsoft hurriedly announced Windows to blunt their momentum. Then again, the Justice Department may have had something to do with stopping this behavior.

Sinofsky revealed quite a bit in his posting, which my colleague Tim Greene covered at length. For starters, he said WOA Microsoft's collective goal is for PC makers to ship it at the same time as Windows 8 on x86/64. He also said Metro style apps in the Windows Store can support both WOA and Windows 8 on x86/64 natively, and that WOA would have desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

As you know, the Windows Consumer Preview (i.e. the beta) will be available for download on February 29.

• Windows
• ARM
• iPad
• Microsoft
• Tablet
• Windows 8