from Hacker News

Advantages:

. Flash memories (specially NAND) are dart cheap these days. And if Microsoft decides to go for it, NOR memories won’t remain expensive given the volume of the OS Microsoft sells.

. Microsoft is losing significant amount of money to the hackers and crackers. And OS in chip only solution will force the customers buy the OS.

. OS hack will be significantly more difficult, if not impossible. Custom design of the chip will make hacking infeasible.

. Loading OS from flash to RAM will require significantly less time.

. Unique hardware identity per cheap (Apple’s iPhone 5s+ like) along with crypto engine will make the users and their data more secure.

Possible solutions:

. RAM Slot: OS in a RAM slot comes to my mind first. A RAM stick can have the OS along with RAM chips. Users plug and play the OS. No more hassle to install OS. It will ensure OS license/user.

. Single chip: Single chip containing flash memory, cryptography engine, MCU and RAM for data and OS update/upgrade management will be shipped with the motherboards of the devices. It will ensure OS license/machine.

. BIOS replacement: replacing the decades old BIOS with a full fledge OS chip makes sense in terms of dynamic hardware detection, and security of the system.

What's the catch?