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Chronicles

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Microsoft: No plug-ins allowed on Windows on ARM

Summary: Microsoft has changed direction and is now disallowing browser plug-ins on Windows 8 on ARM devices, according to a blog post from the president of the Windows division.  —  As we Microsoft watchers continue to parse the 8,600-word post …

All about Microsoft Blog Mary Jo Foley

Context & Ripple Effects

The plug-in ban lands at the end of a two-year reveal. Bloomberg reported in December 2010 that Microsoft was building an ARM version of Windows, and Intel said in May 2011 that it would not run legacy apps. The open question since then was how much of the classic desktop would survive: a December report suggested the Desktop app might be dropped from ARM tablets entirely, before Microsoft confirmed days ago that the desktop is still there.

Today's post from the Windows division president narrows what 'there' means: the story was picked up the same day by MSDN Blogs, ZDNet, ExtremeTech, the Guardian and others, and Microsoft watchers are parsing the full 8,600-word Building Windows 8 post. The reversal matters because earlier direction had implied plug-ins would be allowed, and the ban effectively defines Windows on ARM as a Metro-first platform.

First-order effects

  • Browser makers whose products depend on plug-ins — Chrome and Firefox among them — cannot ship their existing browsers on Windows 8 ARM devices, leaving Internet Explorer as the only full browser on the platform.
  • Plug-in publishers such as Adobe lose a distribution path to ARM-based Windows tablets, confining their runtime to x86 Windows 8 machines.

Second-order effects

  • Developers targeting Windows tablets must build Metro-style apps rather than relying on browser-delivered runtimes, pushing investment toward the Windows Store model Microsoft controls.
  • Intel's earlier point that Windows on ARM won't run legacy apps hardens into a product split: x86 machines keep full compatibility while ARM devices compete on a locked-down basis, pressuring OEMs to choose which side of the divide each device sits on.

Third-order effects

  • If the pattern holds, Windows bifurcates into an open x86 lineage and a curated ARM lineage, importing the tablet-era walled-garden structure into the PC ecosystem for the first time.
  • A plug-in-free browser stack accelerates the shift toward HTML5 as the default cross-platform delivery mechanism, eroding the plug-in ecosystem that carried rich web content through the previous decade.

The trend: Windows on ARM marks Microsoft's move from one open PC platform toward a two-tier strategy pairing a legacy-compatible x86 line with a curated, store-mediated ARM line.

Related: Windows 8 · Microsoft · Windows 8 on ARM: The desktop is still there · Microsoft to drop Desktop App from Windows 8 ARM tablets? · Intel: Windows on ARM won't run 'legacy apps'

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