Trust Microsoft to shoot itself in its foot. They probably assumed that getting Windows PC users to switch to ARM processors would be a tough sell. Their ARM based Windows tablets have languished due to poor performance and lack of software. This made them give a sweet exclusive deal to Qualcomm. Then along came the M1 Macs with their ability to emulate x86 code at decent speed and amazing performance, low power usage and relatively low cost and now customers are begging them to run Windows on ARM. Unfortunately they can't because of that Qualcomm contract which has thus far yielded zilch in terms of usable hardware.
Trust Microsoft to shoot itself in its foot. They probably assumed that getting Windows PC users to switch to ARM processors would be a tough sell. Their ARM based Windows tablets have languished due to poor performance and lack of software. This made them give a sweet exclusive deal to Qualcomm. Then along came the M1 Macs with their ability to emulate x86 code at decent speed and amazing performance, low power usage and relatively low cost and now customers are begging them to run Windows on ARM. Unfortunately they can't because of that Qualcomm contract which has thus far yielded zilch in terms of usable hardware.
Perhaps.
But my bet would be that the agreement was made long ago to get the Windows phone up and running. And, Qualcomm being what they are and doing what they do demanded an exclusive contract to get that project off the ground. If so, Microsoft had few options.
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