NVIDIA Developer Program for Windows 8

nvidia windows 8 developer program

At the Microsoft Build event, NVIDIA has announced that it is starting its Windows 8 Developer Program which will include (free?) Windows 8 developer tools for ARM and Intel X86 architectures. If you missed it, the next version of Windows is going to run on both architectures. Previously, Windows was (mostly) only compiled for Intel’s X86 processors, which are mainly provided by Intel and AMD. Others build X86 chips too, but these are the two big players.

This is huge for a company like NVIDIA, because it fundamentally opens a whole new market for them, with an enormous potential. Put simply: NVIDIA has a shot at being the next Intel. Of course, “having a shot at” and actually executing on it are two different things, that’s why NVIDIA wants to do everything that it can to help developers tune their apps for its hardware platform.  Happy developers create apps that run well, which in turns spur sales, builds a good reputation etc…

The NVIDIA Developer Program should also contain vendor-neutral information that will be helpful on all platforms. Interestingly, despite its relatively small size when compared to Intel, Qualcomm or Microsoft, NVIDIA has always invested more resources in its developer program than pretty much anyone else. It paid off on the graphics side of things, and the company will probably keep the same model.