At the event where Microsoft introduced the new Copilot+ PC platform, we saw a good collection of devices based on the ARM architecture. These days you will find on MC home a review of the most important ones with the presence of giants such as HP, ASUS, Dell or Acer, but… What do we know about the operating system and applications?

Despite the constant rumors about Windows 12, it seems that Redmond wants to extend the life of the current version and they already have Native Windows 11 for ARM and a solution for running x86-64 applications on this architecture: it’s called prism and will arrive this fall with the Windows 11 24H2 update.

A prism is a binary emulation/translation technology which has many similarities to Rosetta 2, the source that Apple used leave Intel forever in record time. According to Microsoft itself, Prism is capable of running x86 applications 20% to 50% faster than current solutions and offers Mac-like performance. We have to wait for confirmation.

At this point it is worth recalling that there are important differences between the way to face this type of transitions: in its history, Manzana played in several with a radical strategy as little link to backwards compatibility (hence the main meaning of Rosetta 2). Microsoft on the other hand pulls a heritage huge, millions of configurations to support and a critical mass of users who are not willing to make sudden changes as has been shown in the past.

In hardware, there are also two scenarios: while in Cupertino they have been designing their own chips for years and only have to support a dozen devices from Redmond, they are dependent on third parties (in this case Qualcomm) and have to solve problems on thousands of different platforms.

So Prism as a solution and working with expected performance will be good news for all but it would be a mistake to stay there. Prism, like Rosetta 2 or any solution of this type, is nothing more than a way to make it easier for developers to migrate to a new architecture. Microsoft’s goal is for more and more native x86 applications to have their ARM version and be able to run without layers in between, taking 100% advantage of the new hardware.

At the moment, there are native versions of applications that are part of Office, browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or Brave, and important players for the professional market such as Adobe or Autodesk are working at full speed to introduce their solutions to the new architecture.

What happens to the games? In the short term, and despite Apple’s attempts, it seems unlikely that we will see any relevant change in this regard, and the triumvirate of Intel, AMD and NVIDIA will continue to dictate the rules of the market, which, let’s not forget, moves billions of dollars in hardware and software every year.