By the time Intel get x86 down to current ARM power levels, ARM would have moved on to the next level. x86 will always be playing catchup in this space.
As another poster said, most software porting is a matter of setting compiler flags. It is not the software that is keeping designed committed to ARM, it is the fact that ARM uses less power to do the same job.
These days most higher-level software is close to being CPU agnostic: Linux, BSD etc. That's why Ubuntu can roll out an ARM version with a bit of effort.
Most x86 lock-in is forced by Windows. Anyone rolling out portable x86 systems (including EEPC and OLPC) are doing this so that they could keep the door open to run Windows. If these devices were ARM based, you could have better battery life (or smaller batteries), simpler circuit boards (less power being converted, higher chip function densities) and less cost.
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It's a moving target
By the time Intel get x86 down to current ARM power levels, ARM would have moved on to the next level. x86 will always be playing catchup in this space.
As another poster said, most software porting is a matter of setting compiler flags. It is not the software that is keeping designed committed to ARM, it is the fact that ARM uses less power to do the same job.
These days most higher-level software is close to being CPU agnostic: Linux, BSD etc. That's why Ubuntu can roll out an ARM version with a bit of effort.
Most x86 lock-in is forced by Windows. Anyone rolling out portable x86 systems (including EEPC and OLPC) are doing this so that they could keep the door open to run Windows. If these devices were ARM based, you could have better battery life (or smaller batteries), simpler circuit boards (less power being converted, higher chip function densities) and less cost.