ARM tablets will be first with Windows 8

Computer and mobile device users around the world are eagerly awaiting the upcoming release of Windows® 8, the latest edition of the popular Microsoft® operating system. In a company blog post, Windows president Steven Sinofsky reveals that the new OS will first launch on tablet computers running on ARM processors.

This news is significant because it keeps in line with Microsoft's insistence that the burgeoning Windows Phone OS will not be run on tablets. Instead, that will be left up to the company's flagship platform.

"That was an open question ever since Microsoft previewed Windows 8 last September," CNET's Jay Greene wrote. "And it's important because the ARM version of the new operating system will be the one that powers many of the tablets that Microsoft hopes will compete with Apple's industry-leading iPads."

Microsoft first gave a peek of the new Windows 8 OS at its Build conference in the fall of 2011 in Anaheim. It's thought by many, including Greene, that Windows 8 represents one of Microsoft's boldest new releases since Windows 95 first launched about 16 years ago.