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ARM says the Internet doesn’t need x86

Published on 4th June 2008 by Tim Smalley

The vice president of marketing at ARM unsurprisingly says the Internet doesn't need x86. Based on the past, we agree.

Ian Drew, Vice President of Marketing at ARM, said yesterday that the Internet doesn’t need x86 to work with no compromises after pointing out that the problems Intel picked up on are now fixed after the processor maker established ties with Mozilla, Adobe and Opera.

During the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, Intel highlighted 57 high-profile websites that were error-ridden on an ARM-based device and the reason cited for this was “because the Internet was developed on x86.”

Considering the fact that ARM doesn’t own an x86 licence, it took issue with this and worked to fix the problems with its architecture – the errors no longer exist and Drew claimed that an ARM-based device gives “about the same Internet experience as an x86 platform.”

During a follow up chat with Intel, however, the company’s representatives described ARM’s bid to keep up with the Internet as “impossible.”

“There are over 100 new Facebook applications released each day,” said one spokesperson. Another spokesperson felt that ARM has a huge task ahead of itself to keep up with the daily growth of the x86 application pool and as soon as it lets go, there'll be a snowball effect.

During a briefing, members of Intel’s benchmarking team asked us to all pull out our mobile phones before blasting each device saying that no two ARM-based devices are compatible with one another. Again, the reasoning was because there’s no “ubiquitous” x86 architecture behind them.

I'm really not sure that the Internet does require x86 for a 'full' experience, because since when was it a problem to run the Internet on a PowerPC-based Mac? I mean, that's not x86 compatible either and I don't remember any PowerBook owners complaining that the Internet didn't run properly. Share your thoughts with us in the forums.

19 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

amacieli 4th June 2008, 16:36

ARM says x86 not necessary? ARM would be correct. So long as you've got your Apaches and PHPs MySQLs and Operas and Firefoxes.

One exception: Flash. Adobe, like HP, "sucks" (as the Americans would say) when it comes to porting their apps to other platforms (e.g., 64 bit Vista).

Another possible exception: Silverlight, but then just how prevalent is that, anyway.

steveo_mcg 4th June 2008, 16:47

You could run Debian on about any thing from a toaster inc ARM and as such you could easily use the "real" web, web 2.0 could become a problem though with out flash although there are some free alternatives which you could probably compile easily enough.

Is it just me or are Intel getting a little defensive these days?

Firehed 4th June 2008, 16:56

The whole concept behind the internet is that the browser does the interpreting and that you have relatively platform-agnostic code (IE excluded, bless it's evil heart). So long as a standards-compliant browser can run on ARM, so can the internet.

I suppose Flash and Java may be the exception here, but that again is something where you just need an ARM-compatabile port of the interpreter, just as you need an interpreter across the different operating systems for those platforms (which is true for html/js as well, they're just far more ubiquitous). It's not like it's specific x86 code.

Bluephoenix 4th June 2008, 17:33

oh intel, when did you become a bullying monopoly and not the giant of innovation we used to love?

cyrilthefish 4th June 2008, 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluephoenix
oh intel, when did you become a bullying monopoly and not the giant of innovation we used to love?

Quite a long time ago actually :)

Seems they've decided to "do a Sony" with their immense displays of arrogance and childishness* of late

Was actually the main reason i brought an AMD system lately, i'd rather not give any money to intel if i can help it :p

*basically the "na na! everything not made by us sucks!" attitude

Panos 4th June 2008, 19:44

I don't remeber to had less factionality on the ancient SPARC I have on the loft.
Or the PS3 users using Linux, they don't seem to have any problems at all either.

Zut 4th June 2008, 23:10

Wait, an Intel VP said WHAT?!! The internet was built for x86??! WHAT???

That is unequivocally the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard in my entire life, and I have met some colossal idiots in my time. I could understand Intel not bothering to train a lowly sales rep, but when their bloody VP of marketing doesn't know what the hell he's rambling on about they must have serious problems!!

wuyanxu 4th June 2008, 23:50

it's not ARM's work to do it. i think applications should move towards frameworks, eg. Java virtual machine.

ARM is a great company, and i will stand by them whenever possible! and they are completely correct, architecture differences doesn't differentiate the experience, it's the operating system on top it and the framework it's running that matters.

zero0ne 5th June 2008, 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zut
Wait, an Intel VP said WHAT?!! The internet was built for x86??! WHAT???

Finally someone said exactly what I was thinking!

I mean hell all the "Internets" infrastructure isn't even x86 based... (Cisco/Juniper/etc don't use x86 processors in their routers/switches/etc do they?)

woodshop 5th June 2008, 02:57

I think i'm missing something... the internet is nothing but the IP/TCP and a few other protocols.. all of which specify byte order. so long as you can speak that you can use the internet like any other.. perhaps Intel should rethink them selves before they look like bigger dips.. Or maybe they are trying to make them selfs look better buy sucking off the accomplishments of its customer base. I think they call that theft..

RotoSequence 5th June 2008, 03:06

Corporate ego-tripping.

Cthippo 5th June 2008, 06:16

Keep in mind this was the same people who tried to convince us last month that GPUs are worthless*. They have appearently decided that spreading FUD is a better buisness strategy than actually making innovative products. Sadly, a lot of companies seem to be embracing this strategy these days.

* for anything except gaming

DougEdey 5th June 2008, 08:34

Isn't web 2.0 mainly AJAX anyway?

Xen0phobiak 5th June 2008, 09:30

but what did CORE say?

I'll get my coat.

Bluefan 10th June 2008, 17:48

Intel just became a bigger egocentric monopolistic brainless childish iritating stupid shortsighted asshole company (pick 3 you see fit).

sort of, at least.

Ninja_182 17th November 2008, 22:14

Just to whine a bit more about the internet for x86, wasnt the internet initially ran from a Motorolla 68000 :P

stealthy edit: Christ I hate clicking 'related stories' *sneaks off into bushes*

notatoad 17th November 2008, 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by amacieli
ARM says x86 not necessary? ARM would be correct. So long as you've got your Apaches and PHPs MySQLs and Operas and Firefoxes.

One exception: Flash. Adobe, like HP, "sucks" (as the Americans would say) when it comes to porting their apps to other platforms (e.g., 64 bit Vista).

Another possible exception: Silverlight, but then just how prevalent is that, anyway.

flash runs perfectly fine on my ARM-based nokia n800.

wolfticket 17th November 2008, 23:14

It seems pretty inevitable to me that the internet will eventually kill software and hardware as we know it today.
In the future all you will need is a client that can access the web and almost all processing tasks and storage will be done on servers.
I wonder what this will mean for bit-tech
:)

Gremlin 18th November 2008, 03:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfticket
It seems pretty inevitable to me that the internet will eventually kill software and hardware as we know it today.
In the future all you will need is a client that can access the web and almost all processing tasks and storage will be done on servers.
I wonder what this will mean for bit-tech
:)

Less tools around as the main population move onto the easy thing leaving the real hardware etc to the hardcore followers like it was back in the day, im all for it hahaha!