Microsoft’s top Windows executives Stephen Sinofsky, who is the president of the software maker’s Windows and Windows Live unit, recently gave some significant details about what he described as "a new member of the Windows family" - the "Windows on ARM (WOA)” software.

According to the details shared by Sinofsky, WOA is“entirely new” software which works only on devices running on ARM, which is the processor architecture behind most of the smartphones and tablet computers.

Revealing that WOA was a distant cousin of Microsoft’s currently-under-development Windows 8 operating system for traditional PCs, Sinofsky recently said in a 8,600-word blog dispatch that Microsoft was currently working towards the “collective” goal of ensuring that WOA PCs are shipped at around the same time as the new PCs running the Windows 8 OS on x86/64.

With Microsoft likely to launch its Windows 8 Consumer Preview on February 29, it is also possible that "a low volume of test PCs specifically designed for WOA" may also be distributed alongside by the company.

Meanwhile, about the sales strategy for WOA, Sinofsky said that, rather than selling WOA in the conventional manner, Microsoft intends tying WOA to a company-defined line of ARM PCs or tablets, powered by chips from Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

Sinofsky specified: “Windows on ARM software will not be sold or distributed independent of a new WOA PC, just as you would expect from a consumer electronics device that relies on unique and integrated pairings of hardware and software.”