WOA vs. x86, which Windows tablet to pick?

the upcoming ARM-based devices that might include Office apps for free or x86-based Windows 8 tablets? Matt Hamblen walks you through some of the pros and cons.

IT managers weighing the pros and cons of picking either an upcoming Windows on ARM tablet or an x86-based Windows 8 tablet nevertheless face a number of unknowns.

Many analysts assume that WOA tablets will cost less, be lighter and have a longer battery life than an x86- or x64-based tablet from Intel or AMD. Nevertheless Microsoft has as well made it clear that legacy Windows-based apps, widely used in enterprises, won't work without being updated to run on a WOA tablet.

Won't a WOA tablet's up-front cost be cheaper than an X86 or X64 tablet running Windows 8? Analysts see the prevalence of ARM-based chips in tablets already on the market as a sign that they will be cheaper for Microsoft to use in WOA tablets. ARM is widely used now in smartphones, as then as in Android tablets and even the highly popular iPad from Apple.

Part of the reason for in other words because Windows is considered a heavy-duty OS, meaning the processor and memory would have to be powerful -- read more expensive -- than what's seen in many low-cost tablets, Gold said.

In an interview, Hilwa added that since legacy Windows apps won't run on WOA, clients will need an incentive to move to ARM. Office would be that incentive.

If end users aren't paying for Office 15 apps in WOA, at that time manufacturers will likely be absorbing that cost, analysts said. Hilwa speculated that having tablet manufacturers cover the Office 15 licensing costs could be synonymous to Apple getting big up-front payments from wireless carriers for the right to sell and subsidize the cost of the iPhone.

"It's going to be fascinating to see how Microsoft monetizes the writing off of the revenue for those Office apps in WOA," Hilwa said.

The hardware

Back to the hardware: Is ARM is as a matter of fact better, costs aside? Unknown. Gold said it remains to be seen how a WOA tablet will run video and other rich-media applications. However given how ARM has performed in doing so far in tablets and hundreds of millions of smartphones, it appears to be more power-efficient than what Intel has so far offered.

"WOA has got to run better than all the other tablets on the market, and that includes Android and iPad as they run in six to nine months from now," Gold said.

The hardware's up to par

Even if the hardware's up to par, the fact that existing Windows apps won't run on WOA is a problem, right? No question about it. Companies that need legacy apps based on Windows won't be able to use them on WOA devices without retooling. That means development costs are involved.

"The major disadvantage in picking ARM on a Microsoft tablet would be that big businesses with lots of apps that run on Windows PCs today won't run [those apps] on WOA," Hilwa said. "The businesses can rewrite their apps for WOA, sure. However it's going to be a while previously the app portfolio catches up. It gets in effect complicated."

The compatibility issues are nevertheless unknown

Gold said some of the compatibility issues are nevertheless unknown. "Compatibility of apps with WOA will be the major issue for businesses," he said. "Any old apps running on Windows 7 probably will run on Windows 8 if it's an Intel machine, and probably won't if it's ARM-based. And many companies are in spite of everything running Office 2007, which is unlikely to run on ARM."

So how do I decide between ARM-based devices and Intel? It boils down to how the tablet will be used, Gold said. "The fundamental question with WOA versus X86 is what does a business want to do with these tablets?"

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .