- Dec 19, 2013
- 171
Many techs and hobbyists alike will be familiar with the Raspberry Pi series of single-board computers. The Raspberry Pi's low-cost, highly-capable boards and compute modules opened up the world of computing and programming to people of all skill levels and saw it quickly becoming one of the most popular platforms since its inception in 2012.
The Maker community has so far had a range of UNIX based operating system flavors to choose from, for developing on their Raspberry Pi's. However, an unlikely new addition is soon to become a tasty option for Raspberry Pi projects.
The Windows IoT Group have announced their collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and that Windows 10 will support the Raspberry Pi 2 which will be offered free for the Maker community, available through the Windows Developer Program for IoT later this year. If it comes as a surprise that windows 10 can operate on the 'Pack-of-playing-cards' sized Raspberry Pi 2's hardware, this powerful device boasts a 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, 1GB RAM, and ARMv7 processor. Microsoft are focusing heavily on diverse device compatibility with Windows 10 and they seem to be working very hard at engaging a broad range of users. Building a relationship with the fast growing Maker community is a cleaver business move which Microsoft stands to make many new fans with.
Just as Microsoft have opened a vast channel of new innovations for themselves by entering the alliance with the Maker community, having an industry leading empire the likes of Microsoft means the community stands to see many benefits in development tools and new services.
Other than the officially stated reasons behind Microsoft's drive for supporting the Raspberry Pi Foundation, it does seem that Microsoft initiated the move and leads to question what else may be in the agenda. The major 'power-houses' in the industry have all played some big moves in recent months, in what looks to be a changing environment in the computing world, the internet of things, shifting market trends and the evolving ways in which people are using new technologies. The coming months are sure to see many more developments across these areas and it looks as though Microsoft are setting up for an epic re-entry into the OS world that will win back many recently disillusioned followers and may just over shadow any doubts in their place at the at the top which they have struggled to defend over the past few years. Irrespective of this, it's a good day for users and the community who will largely benefit while their love and consumer dollar is fought for.
Source: http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/02/02/windows-10-coming-to-raspberry-pi-2/
