This week at Microsoft's Build conference, being held in Anaheim, California, Bill Laing, Microsoft corporate vice president for the server and cloud division, demonstrated some of the new features of Windows Server 8. The next generation of the server operating system features new capabilities such as a revamped, command line-based PowerShell that will allow administrators to control multiple machines, and a new management console for blending in-house servers and cloud resources into a single view.

Unlike Windows 8, however, Windows Server 8 will not come in an ARM edition, Laing said. "The answer in the short term is no," Laing said, when asked if Microsoft is contemplating an ARM-based Windows Server.

The ARM processor has seen a revival in interest over the past few years, as more device manufacturers use the low-power processors to run mobile devices. And a few industry observers have speculated that the chip may also work well in data center environments as well, where it could save energy. ARM Holdings, which owns the architecture, is the possibility of ARM-based server chips.

But should such chips ever be produced, they may still need a Windows Server-based OS to run.

One immediate problem with porting Windows Server to ARM is that the OS was written for 64-bit processors, while the current ARM architecture is limited to 32-bit processing, Laing explained. Windows Server stopped offering 32-bit support with the Release 2 update to Windows Server 2008.