Hard to believe that it’s now been 11 years…
I agree with many points in this article. OTOH it’s also a surprise that MS continues to iterate on it, when they have abandoned so many other things with arguably more success (RIP Cortana 
)
Windows on Arm Report Card: 11 Years in and Still Not a Bulls-Eye | PCMag
The cynic in me believes WOA has always been a combination of MS “life pod” plan in case Intel folded and its poison pill to create price negotiation leverage. Just enough work to keep it on the table
Here;s the telling comment from that article:
" Mozilla’s statistics show few people are enjoying its work to support multiple processor architectures. That spokesperson said about 57,000 people a month use the Arm release out of a monthly total of [about 190 million browser clients."
But doesn’t this strategy risk Intel suing for an injunction on all WOA products? Even if the lawsuit ends in a loss, the protracted uncertainty around the future of Windows (assuming a full ARM pivot) would significantly affect MS.
The reality is there are a complex (and sometimes ancient) network of cross licenses in play across tech companies. So the risk is not zero, but the devil is in the details as to what might breach or not. Patents also expire. If the code can be compiled to new chip designs without emulation, MS could win. IMO the 2017 Intel threat was counter saber rattling.
APOCRYPHAL STORY: When Lou Gerstner took over at IBM he demanded to know why IBM patent revenue wasn’t higher. Abstract discussions of the value and leverage of cross licensing didn’t seem to convince him. The ThinkPad team did a mounted display of the pieces of a disassembled ThinkPad spread out across a board with color coded labels, and a legend showing the parts subject to cross licenses and the projected cost of the part without the cross licenses. In the absence of cross licensing, a ThinkPad’s retail cost would have been more than double (there abouts). Gerstner moved on to other areas.
I have always marveled that IBM got into computers at all. The PC was genius. Amazing that a company as tight-a**ed as IBM was able to see the future so clearly in '81 and act upon it, even though the development of the PC meant the ultimate demise of the typewriter, which had been a staple of the company for half-a-century.
I had my first WOA disaster recently, when a timed back up would not load. I lost a few hours of work. Other than that, I have been running my old legacy software since replacing the Go2 with the Pro X without a problem.
