Well, Microsoft/Intel's last chance at large scale relevance in phone/tablet space depends on ARM/Android/Linux screwing up the 64 bit transition in some meaningful manner, and making a bobble period that gives Wintel a chance to exceed/excel during that bobble period.
You can see that Intel's hardware timing for Bay Trail is aimed at the early half of 2014 and Microsoft is frantically working at optimizing Windows Blue (9.0) to fit that hardware feature set exactly, yielding optimized results. Given a whole year, they might actually make it.
The weakest moment in any new hardware platform is the 64 bit transition period, when standards for the new 64 bit OS are not jelled completely and the hardware isn't compliant completely because the specs aren't shaken out completely yet and both are "searching" for a fit.
Yes, you see everybody working on 64 bit right now -- but are they coordinated enough? ARM and Android and Linaro are in lock step so far, so if your cheap Chinese hardware isn't 64 bit standardized then you get booted down to the 32 bit execution mode instantly which is where you should stay.
My prediction here is that the Chinese quad core A9 guys make no effort to go 64 bit in any meaningful way, so the 2014 grades of Android must make a quick decision to execute in 32 bit mode and simply go that way for these products and always execute in 32 bit mode using fast 32 bit programming. Actually, a separate 32 bit Android makes sense for at least one transition flavor of 64 bit Android ....
A major bobble would be having the software check every time a program lights up (slows down things considerably). Much smarter would be having a separate Android xx for 32 bit processors and a fully optimized Android xx for the relatively few first generation 64 bit fully compatible devices.
Or simply not allow incompatible devices to load the new 64 bit software in the first place.
This would give a cut off wall at Key Lime Pie for anybody who isn't fully 64 bit compatible. Mellow Macaroon would not even start up unless you had a fully compatible 64 bit system to run it on. Harsh, yes, but if you go muddled you give away relevance and a second chance to Wintel for in essence "better planning" than yours.
Microsoft/Intel's last true hope is a muddled up mess in Android land that allows them to excel for a short period of time. We will see which camp can keep their act together better during this critical period.
...... Ballmer's Last Stand, Intel's AlamoIf I were Wintel, the people working on Bay Trail would sit in the same physical office as the Windows Blue people, desks side by side with the hardware/software guys from the two companies paired up for each major chunk of the software. And their stated goal would be "excellence in optimization" right at the product launch. They might even merge the two companies together (if Intel was stupid enough to do that to themselves).
Heck, if they want to be Apple so durn bad then by golly do it like Apple does ...