ARM Chief Believes 90% of PC Market Could Be Netbooks

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ARM chief Warren East gave a candid interview with British magazine PC Pro, in which he made some bold claims about the future of netbooks, Windows, and ARM in general. “We believe that over the next several years [netbooks ... ] could be 90% of the PC market,” he said in the interview.

Although Intel and AMD are dominant in the home computer processor space (with Intel being very dominant, AMD picking up the scraps), East believes that with the netbook revolution of the past 18 months, and the increasing popularity on smaller, cheaper computers, that could change. “Let’s say you go and buy a laptop today. You’ll find the application processor is an Intel device or an AMD device. Typically you’ll also be buying two or three ARM microprocessors,” he said.

East is of course, referring to the smaller processors that power the various other operations on the motherboard. He gave the example of the WiFi or Bluetooth controllers. He went on, “Right now there’s only one microprocessor in the PC that probably isn’t ARM and that’s the applications processor. Certainly what we’re talking about over the next few years – particularly with netbooks, not with PCs – is the opportunity for those to be ARM.”

Of course, one problem holding ARM back at the moment is the lack of Windows support. Windows operating systems cannot run on ARM-powered devices (aside from Windows Mobile), but East isn’t worried. He believes that the rise of market share from Linux-based OSes is more than enough to give ARM success. “I think it’s only a matter of time for ARM to gain market share with or without Microsoft,” he said.

ARM designs and licenses the processor technology being used in the Amazon Kindle, the Nexus One, and yes, even that Apple A4 being used in the iPad is using licensed ARM processor designs.