I hope you’re all sitting down for this one 🙁
Earlier today (well, yesterday, strictly speaking), RISCOSitory published a preview of the Wakefield Show, which takes place on 16th April – two weeks from now.
In that piece, a specific point was made of MW Software being on the exhibitor list – largely because Martin Würthner wasn’t at the show last year and, indeed, his show appearances have, of late, been a little rare. However, since then, the show website has been updated to include the ‘blurb’ that has been provided from some exhibitors for both the website and the printed show guide (which will be provided to visitors on the day) – and all references to Martin’s company appear to have been removed.
Well, not so much removed – more replaced.
And what has appeared in place of MW Software?
Make sure you’re sitting down – and remove all breakable items from arm’s reach before reading on.
Microsoft is now listed on the show website.
Yes, you read that correctly – Microsoft!
According to the floor plan, the US ‘megacorp’ responsible for Windows, an operating system loathed by most RISC OS users, will be on stand 21 – one of the larger stands at the show, and which was previously shown as allocated to Martin. It also indicates they will have the 3:00pm theatre slot – also previously listed as being for Martin, who would very likely have been showing a new version of ArtWorks, updated to address the Red/Blue swapping issue on some modern platforms.
The blurb for Microsoft on the exhibitors list says:
Microsoft will demonstrate Windows 10 IoT Core on the Raspberry Pi, providing an overview of its capabilities and what can be done with it. There’s also a new Visual Studio extension that targets the ARM architechture – and we would like to share our plans for this and your RISC OS operating system.
This fits with recent announcements from the company – they have indeed recently released a Visual C++ extension for Linux development, and the tags on that page specifically mention the Raspberry Pi, an ARM-based device. The release of Windows IoT Core for the Pi was itself proudly mentioned by the Raspberry Pi Foundation when they announced the Raspberry Pi 2 in February of last year – even going on to say they’d already been working with Microsoft for six months by that point.
And to cap all that, Microsoft even sells the Raspberry Pi themselves.
With all of that in mind – and their recent attempts at persuading Windows users to upgrade to Windows 10, which some people have likened to a malware-like approach – read again the last part of their show guide entry. Just to recap, and snip it a little: “we would like to share our plans for RISC OS.”
A chill has just been sent down my spine.