Microsoft, MIPS Form Alliance for Digital Media Devices

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.itworld.com/Comp/1982/030205msmips/' target='_blank'>http://www.itworld.com/Comp/1982/030205msmips/</a><br /><br /></div>If you thought MIPS on CE was dead, you were wrong -- it's only dead on the Pocket PC platform. In fact, this announcement was the kickoff to the "MIPS and Microsoft Executive Summit". I wonder what devices we'll actually see hitting the market.<br /><br />"A number of chip manufacturers will be part of an alliance announced Wednesday by Microsoft Corp. and MIPS Technologies Inc. to design digital media devices based on Windows CE .Net and the MIPS processor core, the companies said.<br /><br />The companies are looking at designs for digital televisions, digital set-top boxes and other consumer entertainment devices featuring the operating system/processor core combination, said Kevin Meyer, vice president of marketing for MIPS, based in Mountain View, California."

[surur]

As an avid slashdot reader ( or is that /. :) ) let me put my paranoid hat on... (the one with the tin foil)

The aim is obviously to use CE for digital entertainment devices, which will always be a target for hackers to free their entertainment from built-in DRM. By using a OS compiled for a seperate processor MS makes it much more difficult to interface with the hardware etc by most hackers.

I contend that the only reason MS is causing this split in the market is exactly for this puspose, to frustrate people who might want to hack the stuff, and also to make it more difficult to transfer the software to another device (e.g. why cant I run that entertainment software on my pocketpc... oohh.. its compiled for MIPS only, ok then....)

Any takers?

Surur

[jefito]

The only people who thought that MIPS on CE was dead are those people who (still) think that PocketPCs are the only devices that use CE. CE is a far more robust and ported product than PPC, which is just the ARM version of a particular rev. of CE, tarted up with the PPC interface, plus some apps. The CE developers kit that Microsoft provides still targets MIPS and all the rest, and OEMs are free to choose which CPU/architecture they prefer.

[Kirkaiya]

The only people who thought that MIPS on CE was dead are those people who (still) think that PocketPCs are the only devices that use CE. CE is a far more robust and ported product than PPC, which is just the ARM version of a particular rev. of CE, tarted up with the PPC interface, plus some apps. The CE developers kit that Microsoft provides still targets MIPS and all the rest, and OEMs are free to choose which CPU/architecture they prefer.


Ditto - what he said. I've known all along that Windows CE was alive and well on MIPS, in fact, I've seen pics of Windows CE.NET devices running MIPS (prototypes). I've also read that Windows CE.NET would be running on AMD's Alchemy, which may (?) be related to MIPS, but haven't heard anything out of it lately.

And hey, what's up with the downward slide of the X-box? Is this the first time Microsoft went up against a worthy opponent (Sony) and didn't crush them? (oh wait - that would be AOL with the dial-up ISP business, but anywaze :wink: )

[David C]

Mips is great and all. But I was actually kinda happy when Microsoft regulated and require all the Pocket PC to use the same processor. Those days were crazy when you had to figure out what kind of processor you had in you Palm Sized PC to qualify for a certain software. The average consumer who buy electrincs don't really want to know the technical specification of the device, they just wanted to know if it works. I really thought standerization was the key componet to why Pocket PC sales started to picked up.

[Janak Parekh]

The only people who thought that MIPS on CE was dead are those people who (still) think that PocketPCs are the only devices that use CE.
Of course. I was just trying to introduce the post. It's interesting, nevertheless, that MS is introducing a new line of devices with MIPS chips. Why MIPS and not ARM, for example?

--janak

[surur]

The only people who thought that MIPS on CE was dead are those people who (still) think that PocketPCs are the only devices that use CE.
Of course. I was just trying to introduce the post. It's interesting, nevertheless, that MS is introducing a new line of devices with MIPS chips. Why MIPS and not ARM, for example?

--janak

Read above :)

It is strange, as there must be developing huge economies of scale now with ARM (hasnt more than 20 million pocketpc's been sold, arms chips are used everywhere, developers (and users) would like one distribution for all their platforms etc.)

The only reason I can think of is that MS wants to split the market on purpose.

Anyways.. my theory

Surur

[Janak Parekh]

Read above :)
Ah, sorry, missed the real point of your post. If MS had never used MIPS before, then I'd buy that. But MIPS+CE-based handheld devices are not a new thing...

--janak

[jefito]

Janak Parekh:
Of course. I was just trying to introduce the post. It's interesting, nevertheless, that MS is introducing a new line of devices with MIPS chips. Why MIPS and not ARM, for example?


Where does it say that MS is introducing any devices? All the article says is that MS will be working with MIPS as part of an alliance to produce the guts of devices that will be built by some other parties.

From the article: "As part of the alliance, Microsoft will work to optimize Windows CE .Net for the MIPS processor core, said Scott Horn, director of marketing for the embedded and appliance platforms group at Microsoft."

Sounds rather more like they are just improving their support for the MIPS CPU.

Incidentally, another quote: "Windows CE .Net runs on handheld and embedded devices, and is also licensed to other companies to use portions of the source code as required for their devices. Microsoft licensed Windows CE .Net internally in order to create its Pocket PC operating system for handheld devices."

Since when is PPC based on CE.Net? Perhaps the next version, but that's not been announced yet, that I've heard. Bit of a howler, I think.

Surur:
The only reason I can think of is that MS wants to split the market on purpose.

What market are you talking about? From the article:

""We continue to work with Arm and other partners, this is just a deepening of a 10-year relationship with MIPS. Different architectures are used in different spaces, and we're focused here on digital entertainment devices," Horn said."

It's a fact that ARM devices are not used in every device, and evidently MIPs still has some life in it. See this page from MIPS Technologies site:
http://www.mips.com/coolApps/index.html

BTW, here's the press release from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Feb03/02-05MIPSSummitPR.asp[/url]

[Janak Parekh]

Where does it say that MS is introducing any devices? All the article says is that MS will be working with MIPS as part of an alliance to produce the guts of devices that will be built by some other parties.
Sorry for the misstatement. I meant to say just that, but nevertheless I was just trying to guess at the motivations. My guess is that they're trying to court everyone with the desire to spread adoption of CE .Net.

Since when is PPC based on CE.Net? Perhaps the next version, but that's not been announced yet, that I've heard. Bit of a howler, I think.
Obviously, PPC isn't. However, a number of ARM devices have come out that are built on top of CE .Net...

--janak

[surur]

All future pocketpc's will be ARM based, right?

So any development on MIPS creates a clear separation between PocketPC software and this socalled Digital Entertainment software and OS.

Now I dont know about you, but I use my pocketpc *mostly* for Digital Entertainment and I resent the fact that MS is trying to create this separation between it and a *Real* Digital Entertainment Device.

If there is no tech reason to keep all the software compatible then why cause this artificial barrier now?

Surur

[jefito]

Surur, you may have a point, but I am not getting it. Look, CE existed way before Pocket PC, and supports many different CPU architectures -- ARM, MIPS, SH3, x86 and so on. CE exists to support embedded devices as well as devices like Pocket PC and handhelds. It offers device designers and OEMs a choice as to what architecture they can use. And for whatever reason, some designers choose MIPS over ARM, and for them, CE is a viable choice of OS. This is not about Pocket PCs, and it's not about creating some kind of artificial divide, whatever that means (computers are artificial, right?). I recommend that you spend a little less time at slashdot and more time learning about CE, in order to understand this better.

[MooseMaster]

Also, the PocketPC platform is meant to be a mobile one, thus requiring a great deal of battery life. Intel's StrongARM and XScale processors provide this battery life, while still maintaining performance, whereas MIPS processors are not as forth coming in battery conservation.

The digital entertainment devices with MIPS based processors are no doubt a form of set-top box that would allow a user to record short TV shows, listen to CDs, perhaps even watch DVD, while providing features such as interactive guides, web access, and instant software upgradability. This alliance is most definitely not about furthering MIPS in any kind of mobile platform. Rather, it is regarding Microsoft's invisioned future of home entertainment, a platform in which the MIPS processor's pros would greatly outweigh its then irrelevant cons.

[bagemk]

You should all realise that this is a non-story. Microsoft announces alliances all the time. 90% of them never come to anything and of the rest, 5% end up in court as the other party realises they lost out of it, 4% result in the company being bought out by MS and only the remaining 1% are interesting.

OK - the figures are not necessarily accurate, but they carry the point.

In this case, you may like to recall that MS had an alliance with several major CPU manufacturers when NT was launched - and dropped them just as soon as they could get away with it.

[jefito]

bagemk, while I agree that this is largely a non-story, particularly with regards to PocketPC, I think that the analagy that you draw to NT is not quite fair. CE is implemented across a far broader spectrum of devices, and as is not the case with NT, no one of them dominates as obviously as Intel did in the PC market. I think that it's unlikely that support for MIPs will dry up any time soon.