The ARM Cortex, especially the more recent models like the A8, are showing up just about everywhere.  HTC, Apple, Samsung and just about any other company producing smart phones depend on ARM for their processing power.  It is estimated that there is around 20 billion ARM processors in use when you count them all, almost putting the x86 and x86-64 architectures to shame.  ASUS was showing off an ARM based tablet running Win7 at Computex so running Windows on an ARM has been done.  Perhaps that is why it is not much of a surprise that Microsoft is now licensing ARM architecture, bringing the two companies three year relationship to a new level.  [H]ard|OCP can fill you in.


"ARM and Microsoft Corp. today announced that they have signed a new licensing agreement for the ARM® architecture. The agreement extends the collaborative relationship between the two companies. Since 1997 Microsoft and ARM have worked together on software and devices across the embedded, consumer and mobile spaces, enabling many companies to deliver user experiences on a broad portfolio of ARM-based products"

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