Running on ARM machines, Windows 8 offers little to businesses
Windows 8 offers one key mobility feature: it’s easy on the battery life of tablets.
In fact it’s so important that Microsoft has a separate category of Windows 8 called Windows on ARM (WOA) that boasts impressive power savings that go beyond mere use of low-power ARM processors.
That’s accomplished via clever, miserly use of power by applications, particularly Metro-style apps that are put into a medically induced coma when they’re idle. They don’t shut down entirely so they are immediately available, but they also don’t drain power much.
An entire tablet can slip into this suspended state, called connected standby, and remain there for weeks without killing the battery, Microsoft says.
This would be great for mobile business users who need to do work on long flights or sales people who spend most of their days on the road unable to recharge.
But then come the apps. Windows 8 on ARMS (WOA) devices only run Metro-style apps, which can be written in Visual C++, Visual Basic, JavaScript and C#. But WOA won’t run traditional enterprise apps, except for certain Office 15 apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These will ship bundled with WOA devices.
But you can’t do business without core business applications, and that is where WOA falls down. In order to run on power-scrimping WOA machines, applications will have to be rewritten as Metro-style apps – quite an investment.
But there is another route. Mobile x86 devices can run the Windows 8 Desktop and support legacy applications that run on Windows 7, so businesses could buy them for their staffs. Depending on the specific hardware, they could support Windows 8 touchscreen features as well as any Metro-style apps that come in handy.
Hardware makers are working on x86 tablets that can run Windows 8 as well as ultrabooks that can be used as both laptops and tablets. Intel’s Clover Trail, part of its Atom family of low-power chips, could anchor some of these devices and keep down power drain while supporting legacy applications.
Many of these devices were promised at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, but none before the middle of the year. That’s plenty of time to check them out before Windows 8 becomes available, likely by the end of the year, but they’re nothing to make plans on now. The vendors vow longer battery life, but that needs to be quantified. It’s uncertain whether battery life of a Windows 8, low-power x86 tablet compares well with the battery life of a WOA device. And nobody’s announced prices yet.
So Windows 8 mobile gear remains a subject for more study. Perhaps it will be an expense that prohibits adoption of Windows 8 tablets, or they may be seen as productivity tools that enable workers to get more done on the road.
