Jun 2, 2011 5:42 PM,

Qualcomm looking to break the Wintel grip

By Kevin Fitchard

At Uplinq, Qualcomm reveals that its next generation of Snapdragon processers are optimized to support the next generations of the Windows OS

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) has won a critical victory in its turf war with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), announcing today its Snapdragon mobile processors have gained Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) blessing to run its next-generation operating system, Windows 8.

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Back at CES, Microsoft revealed that Windows 8 would be its first OS to break the Wintel bind, allowing the new OS to run over ARM-based architectures. No consumer PC running Windows has ever run on a chip that wasn’t built on Intel’s X86 architecture, but one of Microsoft’s big aims for Windows 8 is for it to scale down to smaller more mobile devices, which by their nature need to be optimized for low power consumption—something ARM architectures have always excelled at.

Intel has made a lot of progress cutting power consumption on its mobile processor platform, Atom, but even those gains still don’t come close to rivaling the power efficiency of ARM-based processors such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Texas Instruments’ (NYSE:TXN) OMAP and Nvidia’s (NYSE:NVDA) Tegra chips. Consequently almost all tablets and smartphones have been designed around ARM-based chips.

Qualcomm and Microsoft didn’t announce any specific device deals, but it revealed the two have been in close collaboration to optimize future dual-core and quad-core Snapdragons based on Qualcomm’s new Krait processor (CP: Qualcomm revs up Snapdragon) for Windows 8.

"Windows 8 will enable customers to have the flexibility, connectivity and power that they expect from Windows today with new, touch-only devices like tablets,” said Mike Angiulo, Microsoft corporate vice president of Windows planning, hardware and PC ecosystem, in a statement. “This will require high-performing, low-power processors like those from Qualcomm.”

At Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference, Microsoft demonstrated new tablet PCs using ARM-based processors. Qualcomm is by no means assured of winning any and every new Windows 8 tablet and netbook-based design, but it certainly has a leg up. Snapdragon powers every Windows Phone 7 device released to date.