Microsoft talks about the XScale

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I got this off PocketPCThoughts.com. It's a quick interview with Ed Suwanjindar from the Microsoft Mobile Devices group. Sounds like Micro$oft isn't going to be moving their software towards the XScale processor anytime soon.


THOUGHTS: Early reports based on those who own the Toshiba e740 Pocket PC 2002 device are telling us that XScale at 400 MHz performs slower than a StrongARM at 206 MHz on some tasks. This came as a surprise to many people.

SUWANJINDAR: “We are aware that PXA250 (XScale)-based devices are not demonstrating the huge performance gains that were anticipated. That said, Pocket PCs continue to offer the best performance and the richest functionality vs. other handhelds on the market today.”

THOUGHTS: I’ve seen a few articles on line saying it's Microsoft's fault for not having an optimized OS in place for the XScale launch. What is Microsoft’s response to this?

SUWANJINDAR: “Our software remains the same. This is the same Pocket PC 2002 software that performs fabulously across other ARM processors (StrongARM 1110, OMAP710, etc). We made a hard decision several years ago to move away from supporting several processor architectures and target a single core. This was a difficult decision that we think ultimately benefited our OEMs, developers and customers by unifying our platform around single processor architecture -- ARM V4. The PXA250 utilizes the ARM V5 instruction set with backwards compatibility for ARM V4. When we completed the Pocket PC 2002 software in June 2002, we optimized for the most broadly compatible processor core available at the time (ARM V4), which it still remains today. Choosing to support one processor core ensures we don’t fragment our platform for developers and cause extra work for our ISVs to optimize their applications each time a new processor technology is released.

By staying with ARM V4 architecture we assure longer life spans for our customers existing hardware – for instance if we were to move to an ARM V5 architecture we would have to obsolete the all SA1110 iPAQ devices. Protecting the investments of our developers and customers is very important to us. To that end we’ve worked to make our devices upgradeable. Moving to ARM V5 would break upgrade compatibility. We’re not prepared to strand an installed base of over 2 million iPAQ users.”

THOUGHTS: Some industry analysts have said that Microsoft doesn't have any fix in place because Intel couldn't get the chips out in time.

SUWANJINDAR: “We have implemented and released specific software changes that our hardware partners are implementing without breaking compatibility for our OEMs and users. While we believe there may be incremental gains that could be had via small optimizations we are not convinced there are across the board improvements that would amount to any kind of dramatic system wide speed up. We have to develop software based on the processor architecture that offers the broadest compatibility for developers and when we shipped Pocket PC 2002 as it still is today, that was ARM V4.”

THOUGHTS: Some of those same analysts have said it will be 2004 until there's an OS that can use the XScale CPU properly. Is that an accurate estimate?

SUWANJINDAR: “It’s too early to talk about the next version of our software. That said, we’re committed to delivering best-in-class functionality and performance while providing a foundation that enables our developer community to continue to innovate and build successful businesses on our platform.

Microsoft considers mobile devices a strategic business. We are committed to working closely with Intel and other silicon vendors on delivering future versions of our Pocket PC and Smartphone devices. We have released specific software modifications to our OEMs that in total are all of the optimizations we believe are possible to maximize PXA250 performance (without causing incompatibilities for our OEMs and developers).”

THOUGHTS: This isn’t a good story for the Pocket PC and as more XScale devices hit the market, the issue will get more obvious and ultimately become more serious.

SUWANJINDAR: “Agreed, this isn’t a good story. Very simply, we think this is one of those times when the technical reality didn’t measure up to market expectations. That said for people who use these products, this isn’t a big deal. I’ve used both of the new XScale products that are out there (new Toshiba and iPAQ). They offer the same type of performance that I’ve come to expect on a Pocket PC. I think the market expectation of what performance on a 400 MHz processor vs. 206 MHz processor has been unreasonable. In the mobile device space, we don’t think that MHz is what ultimately matters to customers. What matters the most in this market is whether customers can do what they want to do with devices quickly and easily. With the richest set of software applications built into any PDA on the market, and the strong momentum that Pocket PC has with developers writing for our platform, we think that customers will be able to do the things they want to do with the performance they expect on devices using PXA250 processors.”

[Kitos]

Wow !! That's great! I can't beleive Microsoft just said those things. Who does that guy think he is anyway: "I think people don't care about how fst these devices are as long as they can manage their phone numbers" If it wasn't for the all the extra things and features available for pocketpc features, I'd have a palm! I want to listen to music and draw at the same time. Oh, but wait, Microsoft wants to make sure they work the industry "stratigicly", afterall, the speed doesn't matter to the costumer. That's ridiculous !! I bought an ipaq when it came out because it was fast, I bought an Axim because it was faster and better. I'm really disapointed, I thought they were working on something "serious" to optimize x-scale performance. Oh well, I guess there are worst things out there :)

[Fast_X5]

I think they are not moving on with XScale optimization because vendors still have a lot of older, previous version Arm PDA's and parts for them that they need to sell. So they do not want anyone to go just with XScale as their only choice. We just have to wait since Microsoft and PDA manufacturers will take as much time as possible to get rid of all their old stuff.

[rhyno]

That said, I think that guy uses "that said" too often in his conversations.

:P


--RHYNO

[commoved]

Microsoft always sucks.

But I have high hopes for some the the application vendors.

[Fritz]

In the mobile device space, we don’t think that MHz is what ultimately matters to customers. What matters the most in this market is whether customers can do what they want to do with devices quickly and easily.

No the MHz doesn't matter to me.... speed does.... cuz speed translates to what I can do "QUICKLY AND EASILY"

Dude, have you ever tried playing a GameBoy Advance ROM???? It crawls!! Load a Gameboy Colour ROM, and that's how GBA ROMs should run!

[JakeRich]

I would discount almost every word this guy said. Consider this one, "Protecting the investments of our developers and customers is very important to us." Now consider how fast they dropped the investment of customers and developers in SH and MIPS processors. When the larger base became ARM, Microsoft move to the biggest pile in a New York minute. Now the bigger pile is XScale. You have to believe that somewhere in Redmond somebody is saying, "Hey, why don't we dump ARM V4 and support the biggest group of users that are now on ARM V5? We need to protect their investment!"

[enob]

That Said (he he)
We all need to put the pressure on the HW vendors who will then put pressure on the boys in Redmond...

[Mike C]

Waaaaah!
Good ol' Microsoft.
Bunch a dickweeds.

[psych_o_pat]

seems like I am again victim of early adoption? so the toshiba run faster on some task than my axim? arrrrrrg!!!

[SkyVoice]

The market place will settle the issue(s). $$$ talks... Bulls**t walks. Bottom line. The frustration is in the waiting game.

Ron