The real kicker is this: it turns out that many of the programs will run, but only with drivers provided by MS. And MS will provide them only if the app is sold through the Windows store. From Sinofsky's blog:

Code that uses only system or OS services from WinRT can be used within an app and distributed through the Windows Store for both WOA and x86/64. Consumers obtain all software, including device drivers, through the Windows Store and Microsoft Update or Windows Update.

This, of course, makes a WOA tablet less interesting. But can you imagine being at the meeting mulling this decision, and standing up for user experience, regardless of what looks like a profit opportunity? There go your "focused on goals" and "good team member" ratings, or whatever categories on which one would be skewered.

Nothing wrong with a profit. There's something drastically wrong with lacking the creativity to give a first-class user experience and make a profit, and something very sad about grownups not realizing that without a first-class user experience, there will be fewer profits.

Hank

>>>Microsoft did outline significant details for Windows 8 in the blog post at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windows-for-the-arm-processor-architecture.aspx.
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>>Saw this the other day :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16980442
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>And in this article you point to related to ARM based Windows 8 computers:
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>applications written for other version of Windows will not automatically work on WOA, a potential challenge for consumers.