What you need to know

  • Microsoft's chief product officer Panos Panay took part in the launch event for Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G chip this week.
  • In a short interview, Panay touched on everything from Surface Duo to Microsoft's partnership with Qualcomm.
  • Panay also revealed Microsoft's App Assure team is now working with companies to get their apps ready to run on ARM at no cost.

If you didn't watch the whole launch event for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G chip this week, you likely missed a special guest: Microsoft chieft product officer Panos Panay. Speaking with Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon, Panay briefly chatted about everything from Surface Duo to Microsoft's partnership with Qualcomm and PC makers on Windows 10 on ARM PCs. The most notable part of the interview, however, was what Panay said about the app ecosystem for Windows 10 on ARM.

Microsoft's App Assure team is working with companies to get their apps running on ARM PCs, Panay said. While there were no announcements about which companies Microsoft is currently working with, Panay noted that it's engaged on both the consumer and ISV sides. Further, there's no added cost for companies to work with Microsoft through App Assure.

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That's a potentially big deal for the app ecosystem on ARM PCs, if Microsoft can succeed in ushering developers over. Currently, unless an app is specifically built for ARM, you'll have to deal with either installing a web app or running it in 32-bit emulation. This comes with performance costs that you wouldn't see with a native ARM application.

You can view the full clip above to see Panay's full discussion with Amon.