https://siliconangle.com/2020/06/26/exiting-x86-apple-microsoft-embracing-arm-based-pc/
In a sea change, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are exiting Intel Corp.’s x86 processor architecture for their personal computers.
Apple has been using x86 for 15 years, Microsoft for more than 30 years. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook (pictured) announced the transition to the Arm Ltd.-based PC for the macOS at its online Worldwide Developers Conference this week and said it would complete the process by 2021. Microsoft is also investing in Arm-based PC chips and PCs for Windows and is planning to remove the software migration barriers by 2021.
The primary reasons for this transition are lower costs, a reduction in power requirements and a common platform enabling applications to run on smartphones, tablets and PCs. In turn, this universal platform will enable faster adoption of software and hardware innovations and lead to higher productivity for the end-users.
Both Apple and Microsoft want to reverse the steady decline in PC shipments and see PC growth again. Both want to sell additional software and services to the Arm-based PC, though both platforms will be supporting x86 PCs for a long time.
Any transition is a big and risky business decision. However, our research concludes that the likely benefits of moving are worth the transition execution risk for Apple and Microsoft. Wikibon, SiliconANGLE’s sister market research firm, projects an initial gradual adoption of the Arm-based PC, accelerating over the rest of the decade. Also, Wikibon sees a significant increase in overall PC shipments over the second half of this decade.
At the moment, an Arm-based PC can be faster than an x86 PC and has significantly lower power requirements. Also, it can employ advanced architectures and technologies. These advances enable an Arm-based PC, for example, to process inference AI two orders of magnitude times faster than a traditional x86 PC.
These factors will lead to a sleeker and more powerful Arm-based PC with better battery life. The Apple and Windows PC platforms will become a high-end extension of the smartphone and tablet platforms. They will offer more functions and have access to a broader array of applications.
Apple and Microsoft are investing substantially in the software migration to the Arm-based PC. This code includes AI inference, virtual reality and significant enhancements to real-time photography, video and audio. Wikibon projects that Arm-based PC shipments will increase significantly over the second half of this decade to about 300 million PCs shipped annually by the end of the decade. Wikibon believes the Arm-based PC will make users more productive.
There are two important caveats to this projection: This assumes that x86 vendors do not change their design and manufacturing strategies significantly during the early part of this decade and that Apple and Microsoft continue to invest aggressively in the Arm-based PC and its software ecosystem.
In 1990 about 20 million PCs were shipped, and shipments increased by about 15% every year until PC shipments reached their zenith in 2011. Figure 2 below shows that 365 million PCs shipped in 2011. The “Wintel” duopoly of Intel and Microsoft improved the performance and price-performance of Intel chips every eighteen months, and the functionality of Microsoft Windows with new releases 3-4 years. Windows became the de facto base for both consumer PC applications such as gaming and business applications such as Lotus 123, later usurped by Excel.
Over this growth period, Microsoft was able to integrate a layer of business productivity tools into Microsoft Office and became a software leviathan. Microsoft developed NT, which allowed the same Windows base to be available for servers and PCs. Slowly Intel and Microsoft increased the functions and speed of servers against the reduced instruction-set computing or RISC vendors from the bottom up.
Linus Torvalds created open-source Linux in 1991, and it rapidly became a standard operating system for servers. Red Hat offers maintenance and update services. The functionality and platforms supported by Linux snowballed. Microsoft Windows Server was the looser. In March 2003, the SCO Group, funded by Microsoft, accused IBM of violating its copyright on UNIX. Microsoft’s objective was to outlaw all open-source code. Open-source won in court and in information technology departments.
Linux became the base for most developers. Apple used it with the Arm processors at the historic announcement of the iPod Nano in 2006. Two years later, it became the underlying iOS in the iPhone. Google used Linux and Arm processors for Android development, and Linux was on its way to dominating the consumer and device markets.