Computex Day 2 & Microsoft Build – Tale of 2 Conferences

Computex Day 2 – Wider and deeper.

• While Nvidia dominated day 1 with data centre, it was left to the rest of the industry to make the announcements that everyone has come to Computex to see, namely computing and gaming.
• Here, Windows on Arm continues to dominate the agenda with x86 largely missing in action, although to be fair, neither AMD nor Intel have given their keynotes yet.
• Windows on Arm has developed slower than the chronically impatient market was hoping for, but it is clear to me that the target of 12% share by the end of 2029 will be handily beaten and way ahead of schedule.
• For example, Qualcomm has already laid claims to market share of more than 10% for laptops with a price point of over $800, with a first-generation product and a supply channel still in the stages of being developed.
• Although Qualcomm did not launch the X Elite 2 at Computex (I am expecting it at Snapdragon Summit in September), it still has 85 designs in the market or development with 100 expected in the market in 2026.
• Games remain a real weak spot for Windows on Arm, but there are currently 1400 games supported with other popular mobile games like Fortnite soon to be supported natively.
• A lot of progress has also been made with support for Arm and it is estimated that Windows on Arm users currently spend about 93% of their time in apps that are native on Arm.
• The non-native apps still run almost perfectly, but in my experience, there can be both a battery life and a memory impact of doing so, but not nearly enough to lead me to even consider switching back to x86.
• While it was Nvidia that grabbed all of the headlines, this is the real story of Computex and I think we will soon see MediaTek, Nvidia and potentially AMD jump into the Windows on Arm opportunity that Qualcomm still has all to itself.
• The net result is that Windows on Arm’s third outing is the one that is working, and while it will take time to evolve, there is no reason why it cannot take all of the consumer market and a large slice of the enterprise as well.

Microsoft Build – Platform Play.

• At the same time, Microsoft is holding its Build 2025 conference in Redmon,d where it has laid out its pitch to be the AI platform as well as reinforced its diversification away from OpenAI.
• The main takeaway from the conference, is Microsoft’s view that the vertically integrated world of generative AI is moving to become one of platforms, which is precisely what RFM Research described in its 2024 report Artificial Intelligence – AI Ecosystem Part I (see here).
• Foundation models are already becoming the first platform of the AI Ecosystem, which is why we are seeing Microsoft (and Nvidia) focus on platforms and tools above that layer.
• Microsoft doesn’t own a major foundation model, and with its relationship with OpenAI rapidly going south (by design, I suspect), it is now in its interest to support as many as possible.
• This is why we saw Microsoft announce support for Grok as well as support for MCP across all of the platforms it offers.
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard created by Anthropic which provides an API so that agents can plug into data, tools and services that will allow them to take actions on behalf of the user.
• A standard like this is crucial if agents are going to live up to the promises that are being made in terms of their capabilities, but, as of yet, none of the big digital ecosystems, such as Apple or Google have decided to adopt it.
• Microsoft is adopting it as it has nothing to lose in terms of control, and this will make it easier for its corporate clients to build the agents that they want to help them improve productivity in their companies.
• This is also why Microsoft announced CoPilot Tuning which is a toolset that helps companies fine-tune standard chatbots with the data of their enterprise, such that the agent gains the knowledge of the company and becomes far more useful.
• This is one of the most valuable use cases of agents that RFM has identified so far, and making it easy to use and self-service will appeal to a lot of enterprises, especially the smaller ones.
• Build 2025 is basically about creating a set of tools and services that allow enterprise developers to easily create AI services for enterprises.
• By winning adoption of these tools, Microsoft will greatly increase the attraction to developers and companies of its core IT software products, which is how it will monetise all of the investments it is making in AI.
• With its dependence on OpenAI rapidly diminishing, the risk profile of Microsoft is improving as the last thing Satya Nadella needs is for his business to go down because OpenAI blows up.
• This was clear from the keynote and the announcements, and I continue to think that Microsoft is in a good position to remain a key software supplier as the corporate world starts to use AI as part of its business.