Microsoft have released an extensive blog post and a video about Windows 8 running on ARM processors.  The video also shows off new apps that have not been seen before including email and calendaring.  One of the biggest questions about Windows 8 on ARM has now been answered, will there be a desktop.  The answer to this is a resolute yes.  In the post Microsoft said…

“WOA (Windows on ARM) includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These new Office applications, codenamed ‘Office 15,’ have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption, while also being fully-featured for consumers and providing complete document compatibility. WOA supports the Windows desktop experience including File Explorer, Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop, and most other intrinsic Windows desktop features—which have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption.”

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This does raise some interesting questions.  For example will these four Office apps be full or cut down versions, more like the free Office web apps?  It also indicates that, for the time being at least, Microsoft have abandoned all development on a Metro version of Office.  This is a tremendous shame given that Adobe Photoshop Touch has already shown how powerful touch apps can be, and that Microsoft’s Ribbon, which is already touch-friendly but can be found nowhere in Metro, would suit the form factor very well indeed.

The question also needs to be asked of what will people use or need the desktop on ARM devices for, and will they ever use it?  I’ve written about this on our sister site gHacks today where I make the case for once again splitting Windows into consumer and business versions.  In short though the main problem will stem from the fact that it is unlikely software houses will recode their existing Windows software for ARM chips (existing x86 and x64 software will not run on the new platform, even in an emulator).  This will leave a desktop with only four Office apps, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer and I can’t help wonder if this will confuse the people who want to use their existing software, and annoy IT Pros and business in equal measure.

Either way the video, which you can see below the screenshots here, shows Windows 8 being very speedy on an ARM machine.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise as I’ve tested Windows 7 on a 1GHz AMD C50 processor and it was extremely quick and responsive.

The video, as I said, also shows off new apps, and I’ve taken some screen grabs of them here for you to see.  I have to admit the new email and calendaring apps look lovely, and every bit as pretty and functional as I’d hoped.  Another question that’s been answered is will there be a dedicated Metro file manager.  The answer to this too is yes and a screenshot can be seen below.  There is much more in the video itself.