Microsoft was also vague about support for legacy apps on ARM, but the company has already demonstrated a version of Office that runs in the new Metro-style Windows interface, as opposed to the traditional desktop.

Windows on ARM: What It Takes

I asked about how the process of adapting ARM for Windows is going, and the Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments execs I spoke with indicated that things are going smoothly. All noted that they needed to add support for (if they didn't already support it), but beyond that, the process [of preparing ARM for Windows] is largely about optimizing the code for working with the system-on-chip architecture.

"The work has been going on for more than a year now," says Deepu Talla, general manager of mobile computing and wireless at Texas Instruments. "The only thing I would say we needed to work on was our graphics speeds. We've needed to make changes to our graphics engine to support DirectX. Silicon-wise that's the only difference. And we've made other optimizations in software."

Many of the capabilities of ARM, a chip that dominates smartphones and tablets today, will allow Windows 8 to gain smartphone-like functionality.