CPU Diversification: Ubuntu’s Gain, Microsoft’s Loss

The drive to create faster, cooler, and more energy-efficient CPUs has led to a diversification of processor architectures recently, with the venerable x86 facing competition it hasn’t seen in years. If this trend continues, it will assure Ubuntu and other Linux distributions a substantial advantage over Microsoft, which so far has announced no plans to build Windows for chipsets that are not x86-compatible.

Apple’s decision in 2006 to ditch the PowerPC architecture in favor of Intel CPUs meant that Windows could run on virtually every consumer-class desktop and laptop computer in the world–a goal towards which Microsoft had worked for more than a decade, as it promoted the x86 architecture over its alternatives.

But that success was short-lived, as ARM chips, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon (which was recently previewed in netbooks at Computex in Taiwan), stand poised to attack the market share of x86 CPUs.

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