We know that Qualcomm and Microsoft had announced at WinHEC about bringing full Windows 10 support on to Qualcomm’s ARM based processors the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. While at last week’s Computex 2017 announcement Qualcomm said to have partnered with ASUS, HP, and Lenovo to bring the first wave of ARM-based Windows PCs running full Windows 10. But there is a possibility that Intel would block Microsoft and Qualcomm in supporting legacy Windows apps on ARM based processors by blocking x86 emulation part which is responsible for the whole idea of Windows on ARM.
Yesterday Intel mentioned about the IP related to x86 which they own during press release for the success of x86 for the past 40 years. They also have over 1,600 patents worldwide related to instruction set implementations. Intel said indirectly that few reports are sugesting them that some companies might try to emulate Intel’s proprietary x86 ISA that too without Intel’s authorization.
Intel can sue both Microsoft and Qualcomm over any sort of x86 emulation without their permission. While in that case Microsoft can argue that they are doing is a software emulation not a hardware emulation which would mean no argument of hardware execution of x86 instructions may take place. But we would hope Microsoft avoid any issue.
