Apple To Buy ARM?

gyrogeerloose writes "An article in the London Evening Standard claims that Apple has made an $8 billion offer to acquire ARM Holdings. For those few Slashdotters who don't already know, ARM makes the processor chips that power Apple's iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. However, ARM processors are also used by other manufacturers, including Palm and, perhaps most significantly, companies building Android phones. This explains why Apple might be willing to spend so much on the deal — almost 20% of its cash reserves. Being able to control who gets to use the processors (and, more importantly, who doesn't) would give Apple a huge advantage over its competitors."

Comments

Buying ARM for a leg?

[mmkkbb]

A leg is about 20% of your body mass, so...

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[teh31337one]

This will be an Antitrust goldmine. And people say Microsoft are evil. Urgh.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[epdp14]

No kidding. If Microsoft can get pounded for pushing IE too hard, can you imagine the fallout from Apple telling Palm (or an Android manufacturer), "Oh, you were going to put these in a phone?!?! The phones name doesn't start with 'i'? That'll be $(Original price * sqrt(Steve Jobs current mojo level expressed in number of 1/2 liter units))

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Anonymous Coward]

ARM was founded by Apple and Acorn (of BBC Micro fame). During the 90s when Apple was in danger of going bust it sold off its stake in ARM. Now that Apple has a few quid in the bank, it wants ARM back. Assuming the rumours are true. Anyway, it's not so strange.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[sznupi]

Well, Microsoft are evil.

That said, the summary has gross understatement...it's not just Palm or Android phones, it's essentially all phones. And unspeakable number of other consumer devices (heck, in your PC there are most likely more ARM cores than x86 ones...)

This is one deal which EU might not let through.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Angst Badger]

Apple has long been more evil than Microsoft, just less successful at it. Microsoft, after all, just controls the operating system; Apple controls (or wants to control) everything from the operating system and the hardware to what kind of software you run and data you are allowed to access.

The real tragedy here would be having ARM -- whose creativity and intrepid exploration of any and all markets are legendary -- come under the control of a company with a vision as narrow as Apple's. Instead of driving the development of thousands of new products, as ARM effectively does now, it would be channeled into solely serving Apple's tiny handful of fashionable, locked-down toys while creating artificial scarcity for countless companies who are doing something more than peddling the digital equivalent of designer handbags.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Hognoxious]

And Apple does not YET have anywhere near a monopoly in the smartphone market.

Undid the RDF for you.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[teh31337one]

How is this an antitrust goldmine? Apple doesn't sell the most phones and it doesn't sell the most dollars from phone sales. Your comment makes no sense.

Almost all smartphones use ARM processors. Nexus one, HTC desire, HTC incredible, Sony Ericson Xperia x10, iPhone, iPad etc, the list goes on. Even Nintendo DS and Nvidia's Tegra chip uses ARM processors. If Apple bought ARM, they'd have control over prices and royalties.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[LordLucless]

Yeah, but if Apple uses it's existing monopoly (ARM - assuming the deal goes through) to put the squeeze on other smartphone providers in an attempt to dominate the smartphone market, they're going to get smacked down. I guess it depends if the regulators think that's what Apple's planning to do with its purchase.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Hal_Porter]

Except that unfortunately Apple doesn't have the market share necessary for anti trust to kick in. A court would have do declare them a monopoly for this to happen a la Microsoft. And they could do a lot of damage before this becomes possible.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Big Smirk]

In the past Apple has avoided anti-trust because of their market share (or lack of) and real competition from the clone makers. If Apple moves to stifle competition, they can be assured that the hammer will come down. The risk isn't just from the FTC, but from Europe and Asia as well. Right now Apple enjoys 42% profit margins (IPAD and judging by what they want to for their computers, they probably make just as much off the desktop). If for instance the FTC steps in, the remedy might be splitting the company into two - one hardware, one software. The floodgates for cheap clones will be open at that point.

Right now Apple enjoys a certain amount of lock in. You must buy from their store, you must develop for their platform the way they demand and use their computer with their operating system to do so. And of course fan boys to pay them.

Do they really want to risk that?

Full Disclosure: I was a fan boy in the early 1990s. About $7000 later (at that point more than I ever spent on a car), I was stuck with outdated hardware with no support from Apple to upgrade (just buy new). I also have a G4 - also outdated. So for the new every 2 (years) fans, congrats, I'm happy for you. My dual CPU, dual core Opteron setup (with SLI) was a slow evolution from ASUS dual P3 system that I bought circa 1999. Never spent more than $1000 at any upgrade step and only 'had' to upgrade every 3-4 years.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[AndersOSU]

The SEC review process exists so that new monopolies aren't created. The anti-trust statutes deal with any monopolies who act in an anti-competitive manner regardless of whether the monopoly was formed through acquisition or organic growth. This looks to me like vertical integration, which is an anti-competitive practice. Incidentally, it's not illegal to operate a monopoly, it's only illegal for a monopoly to engage in anti-competitive practices.

(of course IANAL)

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[poetmatt]

If Apple acquires ARM, a lot of people are going to reverse their investments in ARM. I doubt that 8BN will buy ARM though, I suspect they will now request 4-5x that at a minimum.

ARM knows they have a very powerful future.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[LWATCDR]

"Except that unfortunately Apple doesn't have the market share necessary for anti trust to kick in."
But ARM does.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[WrongSizeGlass]

I doubt Apple would want to buy ARM and then kill the sales to ARM's other customers. If they're going to spend $8 billion just to piss it away by killing ARM's revenue they'd be better served by spending the money to subsidize iPhone sales by cutting the price.

Even as a Mac & iPhone user I don't want Apple to acquire ARM. It could set back the competition considerably while they move to new chips or architectures ... and competition is what drives all the device makers to improve their products. Without someone to chase and/or breathing down their neck Apple won't be driven to make advances in their products at the pace they should.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[haystor]

Anti-competitive practices are extremely vague, however. Prices too high, gouging from monopoly. Prices too low, running out the competition to the monopoly. Prices the same as competitors, collusion.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[BlackSnake112]

Actually the EU and governments do have that right. Unless Apple is going to stop selling it's products to other countries, Apple will have to follow the rules of those countries. Buying the source (ARM in this case) and forcing competing companies to pay more is going to raise many, many red flags.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[DrgnDancer]

I just don't know where to begin. There are several points around which the "Apple is evil, this will kill the industry" hysteria fails:

1)This is a rumor. It's a completely unsubstantiated rumor. It may be true, there are a number of reasons it could be a good move for Apple, but it's sure as Hell not a fact yet. Calling Apple "evil" for something they may or may not even be doing seems a bit harsh.

2) In the event that this rumor turn out to be true, the deal will face regulatory scrutiny from agencies in (at the minimum) the US and EU. Probably several Asian countries as well. So assuming that Apple is considering this bit of "evil", several country's regulatory agencies will have to be either "evil" or "stupid" before it becomes a problem.

3) Assuming that Apple is really planning to make this bid, and it gets by the regulators, there are lots of reasons Apple would buy ARM, then simply continue with business as usual. ARM is hugely profitable. Buying them, then continuing their business model, would simply increase Apple's profits. Of course they would guide ARM's development to make things that Apple needs in particular, but a lot of those thing are the same as any other CPU customer would want. In this scenario Apple, at worst, is getting to guide ARM's dev model while getting their own licenses at a discount. Nice for them, but not game changing.

4) Assuming the worst case scenario, Apple buys ARM, gets it past the regulators, then takes their new found power and starts abusing it; is it really all that bad? They won't simply be able to cancel all the license agreements ARM already has. They'll have to slowing cut off the supply of ARM tech to the industry as old agreements expire and new tech isn't licensed. Given that it will have to be a slow process, there's plenty of time for a new player (or players) to simply inch into the niche as ARM is inched out. I'm sure Intel, AMD, or some other company no one has heard of yet would love to take over ARM's spot.

TL;DR: This is a rumor not a fact. It'll have to get by the regulators if it happens. If it turns out that it is real, and the regulators go for it, Apple may not abuse it. There's plenty of good reasons to leave things as they are mostly. If all of the worst possibilities occur, it still doesn't seem like it would be that awful for the industry, though it would certainly shake things up.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Will Fisher]

Er. TFA say the offer is 400p a share. Currently they trade at around 250p a share. This represents a 60% premium. Given that ARM is very close to its 52 week high, at 400p it's a no-brainer for the shareholders.

I, however, don't really think that Apple is going to buy ARM. The Inquirer has a very good analysis of why not here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1602331/apple-arm

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[truespin]

42% profit is just factoring the cost of the parts
This is not including R&D, manufacturing, transportation, marketing etc...

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Albanach]

Antitrust is a crock. Nobody except for whomever owns the property of ARM has any right to say how ARM's processors can be used.

Ah yes, because you know more about economics than every significant economist since the days of the Roman empire. And that's why you're sitting here posting on /. You're right and everyone from John Stuart Mill to Adam Smith got it wrong.

Businesses are out to make money. If they are allowed to become a monopoly, they can simply create artificial scarcity by lowering production and consequently increasing prices beyond their natural level. It's happened before, will happen again in the future and is the reason there have been laws against it for the past few thousand years.

This has nothing to do with property rights. It's to do with protecting the free market so it can continue to work as intended, to develop wealth and grow the economy.

Typically laws don't outlaw being a monopoly - after all if you invent something new and have no competitors, you're a de facto monopoly and that's not illegal. Abusing a monopoly like I described above is where you get in trouble.

Anti-trust regulators would look at why Apple would want to buy ARM and the likely impact on Apple's competitors. What can Apple gain through owning ARM that it doesn't get from being a customer? ARM license their IP widely, Apple can do pretty much as it likes with that technology - as it just did with the A4 chip. There's little obvious need for them to buy the company, other than to hinder their competitors.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Sepodati]

Vertical integration is not illegal. Using vertical integration to eliminate or frustrate competition is illegal, though.

Hopefully that's what you were saying, too, and this just further clarifies. ;)

John

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[TheRaven64]

Some of the phones use Qualcomm's Snapdragon which is not ARM based.

Yes it is. Qualcomm buy the most expensive ARM license, which gets you all of the sources for the design and the ability to change anything. The Snapdragon is a modified Cortex A8 (reworked FPU pipeline and a few other changes). It uses the ARM instruction set and is based on a design licensed from ARM.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Nadaka]

This is correct, it is licensed from ARM, but is not a bog standard arm implementation.

For instance, snapdragon implemented multi-core functionality, standard ARM chips only support multi-core for Cortex A9 processors.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Umm... ARM would beg to differ.

It may be less similar to ARM Cortex reference designs than some of its competitors; but it is definitely ARM based.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[metamatic]

Other than commercial iPhone Apps, you don't have to buy anything from their store.

That's like saying that other than mainframe software and spares, nobody had to buy anything from IBM. Or that other than gasoline, nobody had to buy anything from Standard Oil.

And anyone can get the developer kit for iPhone and install any app they want.

No, they can't, because the developer kit has conditions on what apps you are allowed to develop and install in the license, which you must explicitly agree to before you can download it.

I don't see you complaining that you can't run some exclusive Xbox game on your PS/3 or Wii.

Then you're not a console gamer. Do a quick Google Search for "GTA IV DLC PS3 2008" and you'll find endless amounts of complaining and flameage over the fact that some GTA IV content was Xbox-exclusive.

Furthermore, you're engaging in the fallacy known as "tu quoque". And believe me, if anyone offered a console that was competitive with the PS3 but completely open, I'd be all over it. It's just that consoles have always been locked down. Phones and portable computers haven't, which is why Apple's attempt to start locking them down pisses people off.

And finally, one must remember that ARM holdings licenses ARM technology to other companies to make their own specialized versions of ARM processors. They don't actually make all the ARM chips going into devices.

And the chip manufacturers license the intellectual property from ARM holdings. If Apple owns ARM holdings and refuses to extend the IP contracts, the chip manufacturers can't make any more ARM chips. And if Apple adds clauses to the contract saying they can only sell to Apple-approved customers, or that chips sold to parties other than Apple require a more expensive license, well...

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[pydev]

It's massively misleading to say that "ARM was founded by Apple and Acorn" and that they "want it back".

ARM was founded long before Apple got involved, and the core architecture was developed without Apple's involvement. At some point, Apple started working with them because they had some special requirements for the Newton.

Given Apple's current position, it would be an outrage if antitrust regulators allowed them to purchase ARM. And you would likely see the rest of the industry dropping the chip like a hot potato and coming up with their own alternatives.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Hognoxious]

ARM does not have a monopoly on low-power chip. MIPS and many others are also in this game.

The word "monopoly", despite what its Greek roots imply, does not mean there's precisely one supplier.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[TheRaven64]

For instance, snapdragon implemented multi-core functionality, standard ARM chips only support multi-core for Cortex A9 processors.

Not quite true. The Cortex A8 does not support multicore, but the ARM11 MPCore did. The A8 didn't because hardly anyone licensed the MPCore version of the ARM11. The A9 does because ARM became concerned about Intel nudging down towards their market and decided to try expanding upwards.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[blackraven14250]

Owning the supplier of a chip that's used in nearly every smartphone when you're in the smartphone business is very, very likely to at least raise many red flags with regulators.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Ion Berkley]

Its a quite accurate statement to say Apple is a founder. ARM originally stood for "Acorn RISC machine" and was developed internally at Acorn. When ARM was incorporated as an independent entity it was done so with Acorn and Apple as 40% owners and VLSI technology (at that time the sole manufacturer) as a 20% owner. At that time the name was changes to "Advanced RISC Machines". Apple had more than Newton in the big picture at that time including laser printers. The ARM610 was indeed developed specifically for the Newton, with a special MMU by ARM as one of its earliest projects. ARM cpu's (in many case multiple ones) are in every cellular handset I'm aware of in the last decade not just smartphones. ARM cpu's are being used by most of the next wave of startup companies in low power server design..look at Smoothstone for an example. And of course they are making serious inroads in Netbook design, both NVIDIA's Tegra and Qualcomm's Snapdragon are giving Intel plenty sleepless nights right now. The last ARM design I did put an ARM7n in every electricity meter...in other words our entire tech world is already built around this architecture.

The royalties on the older designs are tiny and not going to be affected by an acquisition, don't expect any significant cost changes to be noticeable at retail even if it were possible to renegotiate the royalty schedules. After some stagnation in the last decade where ARM struggled to break out of the the low cost embedded space the company is suddenly looking strong again and it could be quite possible that Apple wants to go this way as an insurance policy, because they fear other big stalkers might acquire a company they are increasingly strategically reliant on.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[nine-times]

Sorry, but the 1990s were the absolute wrong time to be an Apple fan. That's when they sucked.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[sznupi]

Hard disk controllers, DSL "modems", build in monitor controls, mouse, keyboard, optical drives.

Sure, not all of them might have ARM in your case, but considering that vast majority of PCs has 1 on 2 x86 cores, greater number of ARM ones is easy.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[nine-times]

I'd dispute that. Apple keeps pretty tight reigns on its own products, but they aren't very devious and don't particularly try to break interoperability. Apple uses an open source OS (the GUI stuff isn't open, but at its base OSX is a BSD varient). These days, Macs support X11, ODF, and common unix tools out of the box. They've contributed to open source projects, including their own calendar server and webkit. While Apple was pushing the record labels to drop DRM, allowing Apple to sell music in an open standard, Microsoft was pushing them to use Microsoft DRM and distribute music only in their own proprietary format. Apple has been one of the companies leading the charge in pushing HTML and CSS standards forward.

Sorry, Microsoft has historically been far more evil and Apple. It's true, though, that Microsoft seems to be getting better these days, with things like supporting ODF, working with SAMBA, and planning to provide real/compliant support HTML5 in IE9.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[l3prador]

Amazon MP3 has over 11 million songs.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[CAIMLAS]

Apple is a vertically integrated monopoly: check.
Apple engages in anti-competitive practices, as is, with restrictions on what can and can not run on their platform(s): check.

Looks pretty clear cut to me that further vertical integration would be disadvantageous for customers.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[DrgnDancer]

I don't see it. The only way Apple could have an immediate chilling effect on ARM licensees would be to immediately cancel or change the terms of current licenses. That won't fly. Regulators won't have to get involved. The licensee will immediately sue, and likely win quite quickly. It's a matter of civil law, not criminal law, to violate the terms of a contract. It will take years to whittle down the current licensees to a point where Apple would wield significant competitive advantage. Plenty of time for a new player to get into position.

Anyway, I still don't see Apple even wanting to do this. ARM's profits are considerable; almost certainly on par with any other single division within Apple. This isn't a case of Apple buying a struggling supplier to prop them up; ARM can easily be a profit center in and of itself. There's no way that leveraging ARM, in and of itself, will increase profits on iPhones and iPads enough to completely eclipse the profit potential of ARM itself. Why buy a goose that lays golden eggs then strangle it for Christmas dinner one year.

I see the thing working like this (assuming there is anything to the rumor at all). Apple makes an offer on ARM. Regulators get involved (as Apple is no doubt expecting that they will). Apple agrees to keep ARM as a wholly owned subsidiary, and otherwise makes various guarantees that they won't simple eat ARM and spit out the bones (as they likely hadn't been planning to do anyway). Regulators agree. Apple buys ARM. They give themselves excellent terms on licensing ARM's technology (obviously), and make it clear to ARM's management that several up and coming technologies (which Apple no doubt wants for iPhone 6.0) are now priorities. Otherwise, they leave things alone. ARM continues to license it's technology, it continues to make piles of money, and Apple adds a reasonable portion of those piles to its own piles.

Does Apple gain certain competitive advantages? Certainly. They're going to be licensing ARM's tech at a significant discount I'm sure, and guiding ARM's R&D in the directions they need it to go (as well as knowing what those directions are ahead of time). That's not really game changing though. At best it let's Apple shave $10 off the cost of an iPhone (or make $10 more of each one). It's good. It helps them. It doesn't slaughter the competition. Meanwhile everyone else is still licensing ARM tech and Apple is making money off of that too.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[pydev]

Its a quite accurate statement to say Apple is a founder

It is accurate, but it is also massively misleading because it suggests that Apple participated in the creation ARM, which they did not. All Apple really did was invest in already existing technology when a business reorganization gave them an opportunity to do that.

it could be quite possible that Apple wants to go this way as an insurance policy,

Who are you trying to kid? Apple wants this to screw their competitors by controlling the chip design many of them rely on.

because they fear other big stalkers might acquire a company they are increasingly strategically reliant on

Apple shouldn't project their own rotten behavior and motives onto others.

in other words our entire tech world is already built around this architecture.

And that's why Apple cannot be allowed to have it.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Sandbags]

Most currently marketed phones use ARM, perhaps. This is FAR from a monopoly on production however. In fact, if it was, ARM would already likely be under investigation if there was any fishy stuff since Apple is so small comparatively.

So, here's the current line-up:
- ARM (11, Cortex A8, ARMv7, etc)
- nVidia (tegra, Tegra 2, which has existing license on the ARM core architecture set that can not be taken away by a merger with Apple).
- Marvell XScale (also ARM based, but licenses only instructions, not the core architecture).
- Qualcomm Scorpion (an ARM clone, also licensed, combined with ATI graphics
- Intel Atom
- Moorestown MeeGo.
- Samsung. yet another licenses ARM core design, but using alternative architecture.
So, not exactly a monopoly (not even a duopoly) but, there's more...

Don't think for a second ATI is not designing their own. Rumor has it Big Blue is also...

Then, there's other issues, most notably FRAND. ARM is a reference architecture, and is already open licensed. That license must be offered to ALL comers provided fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory pricing, or Apple would be in a world of shit.

Then, there's the idea that it is COMPLETELY LEGAL to be a monopoly! It is only illegal to ABUSE monopoly position to unfairly stifle competition or emergent alternatives. Since they're already covered by FRAND, it's pretty hard for Apple to do anything aggressive that way.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[Sandbags]

No. ARM has a core architecture, but they OPEN LICENSED that architecture to numerous firms, just as Intel did with AMD. At this point, Intel could refuse to share new tech with AMD, but that does not stop AMD from competing, as they have license to modify the x86 code set and produce chips. That is NOT a revocable license.

Apple's ownership of ARM would NOT prevent independent ARM development or manufacture. If apple played hardball and refused to share new ARM development other than what was already licensed, all that would happen is those who already licensed ARM up to and including core rights to integrate ARM's command set, core architecture, and subsets with other technologies (Tegra, Snapdragon, etc) would continue to partner together with each other and develop further ARM-based processors, and Apple would be left in the cold...

Apple is not stupid. FRAND laws apply here, existing licenses and contracts can not be altered by this merger, Apple is merely interested in the profit from the arrangements ARM already has (and lowering their internal costs with PMI Semi and the A4 and future architectures).

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[yankeessuck]

How are App Store restrictions anti-competitive towards other smartphone and music player vendors? If anything that would help them because Apple users have less choice in apps.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[rbgaynor]

Exactly. Anti-competitive behavior would be Apple telling App submitters that in order to be approved you must agree not to write apps for other mobile platforms.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[bkr1_2k]

Prices will never go below a certain level. If the unwashed masses start using Apple products then the aura of smug superiority will vanish.

Have you looked around? Everyone and their brother has an iPod or iPhone these days. I hate to break it to you, but the "unwashed masses" have been using Apple products for the last couple of years. The only "aura of smug superiority" I've seen about them are the Mac commercials and the attitudes of people here on slashdot.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[ergo98]

Yuk yuk yuk.

It's "factual" in a purely paper sense. Apple had nothing to do with the creation of ARM the engineering team, the original processors, and so on. As pydev noted, Apple's participation was limited to being an investor when Acorn spun off ARM. It's essentially like saying the US Government invented the Chevy brand because now they are a part owner.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[jsvendsen]

Indeed. In fact, I'd say the average android user is a lot smugger than the average iphone user these days. I should know, I'm one of them now with my nice new Desire.

Re:Buying ARM for a leg?

[pydev]

I do. Like the fact that Apple marketing, in the span of a few months, switched their rhetoric from "Intel sucks" to "Intel rocks". Funny how that goes.

PowerPC probably wasn't a good match for Apple. But IBM certainly did nothing deliberate to hurt Apple; IBM was trying hard to make PowerPC go because they depended on it as well. And it's not like other chip manufacturers haven't had bad periods.

And if Steve Jobs thinks he can manage chip design and manufacturing better than IBM or Intel, he's a fool.

Apple's PowerPC experience is not a plausible reason for Apple to buy ARM.

Google

[Spad]

Maybe Google had the inside track on this one which is why they made their move on Agnilux?

Please don't...

[will.perdikakis]

ARM is one of the better generic processors for embedded and small systems. Apple purchasing them may (read: will) limit the usage of ARM or price them out of the market.

As much as I appreciate what Apple is doing with mobile computing, a move like this (assuming they change the current state of ARM) is going to affect the industry (even markets that do not directly compete with Apple) in a non-positive way.

I hope this doesn't happen, but if it does, I hope they leave the current ISA/availability/pricing scheme alone and just use ARM resources to improve their own products, but that is unlike Apple.

Re:Please don't...

[je ne sais quoi]

I hope this doesn't happen, but if it does, I hope they leave the current ISA/availability/pricing scheme alone and just use ARM resources to improve their own products, but that is unlike Apple.

You mean how Apple destroyed CUPS after they bought it? Or how about when they stopped upstreaming changes to webkit? Despite much hand-wringing by slashdotters about this, they didn't do either of these things and these projects are both fine. Apple contributes much more to open source than Microsoft does and while hardware is a different beast, the point is there is absolutely no evidence that Apple would ever stop selling ARMs to competitors.

In any case, why the fuck would apple want to buy ARM? THey just bought P. A. Semi. The whole article is just baseless speculation by people whose sole purpose in life is to drive page views while having the title "analyst".

Re:Please don't...

[UnknowingFool]

Apple never even started upstreaming changes to WebKit. They simply forked it from khtml, and all backporting to khtml has been done by the khtml developers themselves. Or do you seriously think that not breaking the LGPL license is a grand contribution to open source software? Keeping CUPS open is more than keeping it legally compatible with the GPL openprinting drivers?

I wouldn't say all. While there was a time where khtml developers had issues with the backports, it appears that Apple developers have helped them more recently. Also did you forget the whole part where Apple open sourced WebKit. The khtml parts are still under a LGPL license while the newer Apple parts are under a BSD license. The last time I checked, the BSD license is far more permissive than a GPL license.

Re:Please don't...

[Altus]

Apple has been burned in the past by chip makers not putting the R&D into the types of chips that apple wants. That was the issue with the PPC architecture. They dont worry about this much with intel because on the desktop and in laptops Apples needs arent that much different than those of PC manufacturers. Plus they don't have the cash to buy intel and there isnt really a competitive company for them to buy (though there have been rumors of Apple buying AMD).

I think Jobs would like to have more control over the designs of the chips going into his products so this move would make sense.

Re:Please don't...

[UnknowingFool]

Yes, Apple can certainly release a closed-source WebKit. Under the GPL, they are obligated to release any khtml modifications under a GPL license. They are under no obligations to release their code that are not part of khtml under any license. And they did so until 2005. Up until that point, only WebCore and JavaScriptCore were available as open source. That's when they released all of WebKit.

In addition to WebKit, Apple has released Darwin OS under a BSD style license. OS X is Darwin + Aqua UI + Apple libraries. Aqua and their libraries are still proprietary but anyone can get Darwin. I would consider releasing open sourcing an OS to be open source friendly.

Ahem

[Ancient_Hacker]

That should be "its" competitors. And it's unlikely they'd flex their muscles much in the direction of stifling the companies that use the ARM design.
More likely: Apple wants to extend ARM in directions that the current ARM management is balking at.

Re:Ahem

[Tarsir]

No. You're thinking that 'it' is a noun, so its possessive form should act like the possessive form of other nouns:
cat / cat's
Steve / Steve's

But 'it' isn't a noun, it's a pronoun, so its possessive form acts like those of other pronouns:
he / his
she / hers
my / mine

The pattern I'm trying to illustrate is that for nouns the possessive form is a morphological variant of the base word, whereas for pronouns there is a distinct word, the possessive pronoun, corresponding to each 'base' pronoun. That being said, I make the its/it's mistake all the time, because the two constructs are unfortunately similar.... And I'm sure I've made it at least once in this post.

Mmmmm...

[LordBmore]

There's nothing like a nice warm cup of unfounded speculation to start the day off right.

Re:They wont be having my shares

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know the company was jointly founded by Apple, Acorn and VLSI in the first place?

Re:Be very afraid.

[keithjr]

Although I'm not 100% in on your rhetoric, I think we agree, this would be terrible for the topology of the tech industry.

To say that ARM makes smartphone processors is touching just the tip of the iceberg of ARM's influence: ARM is the embedded processor maker. They also don't make processors; they license IP, including to other chip companies like Intel. Apple acquiring ARM just to get better control over mobile hardware would send shockwaves into one of the most dynamic sectors of the tech industry today.

Nice Qoute

[e2d2]

I love this quote:

"A deal would make a lot of sense for Apple," said one trader. "That way, they could stop ARM's technology from ending up in everyone else's computers and gadgets."

And at the same time kill ARM's business! Hilarious.

Re:Nice Qoute

[Sycraft-fu]

Ya I don't know why the assumption is that someone else wouldn't step in to the market. Someone like, say, Intel perhaps. Right now, there isn't a ton of interest in new designs in that space because of ARM. They work well, are low powered, and licensed such that they can be implemented cheaply by many people. Intel used to use ARM architecture in their Xscale chips (which are quite popular) before they sold that division to Marvell. As such, there's not a big reason to try and muscle in to the market, you probably aren't likely to make a lot.

However, if Apple decides to play king dick and charge a lot or simply say "Nope, nobody but us can have these chips," well that changes things. It isn't as though all the other mobile phone makers will shrivel up and die, rather they'll look for new hardware and someone like Intel will be happy to provide it for them.

However, that aside, you have to consider that businesses are often very careful about the licenses they make. When licensing an architecture like ARM, they may well get a full architecture license that lets them implement any of the designs they've licensed, in any form, in perpetuity. That sort of contract comes with a company when you buy it. You don't get to throw out their obligations. So while Apple could for sure change new agreements, any of the ones that stand they can't.

There's also the question of how willing companies that do the implementation of ARM, like Marvell, and fabs would be to play ball with Apple. Apple is only a small part of their business. So if Apple suddenly says "Nobody but us can have ARM," maybe Marvell says "Fine we aren't going to sell you any ARM chips." Now Apple has to design the final chip implementation, which isn't the same as the basic architecture. Then maybe the fabs say "Screw you, you've hurt our business cutting off ARM chips, we won't fab your product." Now they have to build or buy their own fab, which is massively expensive.

Hardball can be played multiple ways in the business world and you often find out there is a lot of mutually assured destruction situations out there. I can't see a situation where Apple trying to keep ARM to themselves would do anything but cause a competitor to ARM to arise and be used.

Re:Nice Qoute

[e2d2]

Uhm, mods. I was the OP. How can I troll myself? lols. I was trying to correct a typo.

Re:I don't think ARM makes chips

[MBGMorden]

Other than being able to steer the technology, I'm not sure what apple would be able to do?

Not license the design? Even though it's being manufactured by many companies, the design is still licensed. If Apple decided to revoke those licenses then it doesn't matter who was making them, the supply would dry up.

Re:Be very afraid.

[Suiggy]

Yeah, I can totally see Apple setting things up so that they get exclusive use of the new ARM processor architectures for a year before other corporations are able to license them.

Re:Be very afraid.

[AnonymousClown]

Now this is scary. One small step for Apple towards their global technocratic dictatorship.

Dictatorship? I don't think so. Theocracy? Yes.

When Steve dies, he'll be turned into a God and prayed to by His followers. After all, he's already a demi-god.

His followers will be recognized by the rimless glasses, black faux turtlenecks, and razor stubble.

When cursing others, the Follower, aka FanBoy, will say "Go to Microsoft! You Son of a PC!"

Sneeze? "Jobs bless you!"

And of course, Wozniak will be sainted. There will also be a virgin birth myth and some other stuff, but it will come.

Antitrust

[necro81]

Being able to control who gets to use the processors (and, more importantly, who doesn't) would give Apple a huge advantage over it's competitors.

And it is for this very simple reason that it would be blocked on antitrust grounds. Even if the slightly more lax regulators in the US would permit it, you can bet the Europeans wouldn't (ARM Holdings is based in the UK).

Re:Antitrust

[dmesg0]

ARM is definitely a monopoly in mobile CPU IP. Apple is monopoly in some other areas (e.g. digital music players in the US). This should be enough to at least involve antitrust authorities. And with all the numerous ARM licenses affected by such acquisition, there will be a lot of pressure to block it.

Re:Antitrust

[necro81]

Gaining an advantage over your competitors is *not* grounds for anti-trust.

Apple buying ARM Holdings wouldn't in an of itself be grounds for antitrust. But, the potential to then abuse that ownership to block out competitors that use ARM components in the smartphone/etc. markets would be. Rather than allow such a situation to come about, regulators would block the sale in the first place.

Re:Be very afraid.

[nomadic]

Now this is scary. One small step for Apple towards their global technocratic dictatorship.

I know the cultists will shriek, but if Apple had won the PC wars back in the early 80's I have no doubt we would all be using desktops that are exponentially less powerful than the ones we have now. Similarly, if Apple were to monopolize the smartphone market (not that I think they will ever be able to, even with ARM), the rate of progress will slow.

Am I the only one...

[vikingpower]

..who thinks that is short-sighted from Apple ? Apple has, since its very beginnings, been about two things: computers, i.e. finished computers - and software. In the long run, buying Arm is a beginning of turning Apple into a conglomerate. And conglomerates are not only unwieldy and difficult to manage - they don't survive for very long.

Re:Am I the only one...

[Jer]

Jobs has, at least since he shoved Woz off to the side, been about one thing - total vertical control of Apple's platforms.

Apple has the money and the size now that they've been expanding that vertical control upward deeper into the application level of their machines via their appstore. It's not surprising to me at all that they would want to expand that vertical control down as well into controlling more and more of the hardware. That strikes me as a very Jobs/Apple thing to do.

Re:I wonder what the DOJ will have to say...

[magarity]

Yes, this bit in the summary: Being able to control who gets to use the processors (and, more importantly, who doesn't) Is pure fearmongering. Artificially restricting sales to a select group is completely against the Clayton Act in the US and while I don't know the name in the EU, they have similar laws.

Re:Be very afraid.

[betterunixthanunix]

Much as I hate Apple, I have to disagree on that point. Had Apple won the PC wars, it is likely that our current desktops would be just as powerful...but we would have a lot of difficulty making use of that power. In a world where Apple had control over our desktops, I imagine that third party developers would be largely left out of the loop, their programs reviewed and approved by Apple before making it onto our desktops, and so forth. It would also be a world where jokes about the amount of pornography available on the Internet would not exist...

Chip purchases

[lec8rje]

Ars has a couple of articles that may be of interest. Firstly concerning Google chrome
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/chromeos-kernel-source-code-hints-at-arm-tegra-2-hardware.ars
and later there was this
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/04/google-buys-secret-chip-startup.ars

Qualcomm, now Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week there was a rumor that Qualcomm was going to buy ARM. Now there's speculation about Apple.

It's possible that Steve Jobs took the Qualcomm rumors seriously, and bid for ARM just to make sure that Qualcomm didn't end up buying the company.

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/arm-holdings-apple-nokia-oem-semiconductors/3/8/2010/id/27176

Re:Be very afraid.

[Culture20]

Oh gawd. Please. When is this hyperpoblic crap going to end?

When Apple stops proving all of the previous hyperbolic crap to be true. The next step after ARM is buying a few more congressmen than Microsoft.

Re:I don't think ARM makes chips

[Tom]

And obviously you think that everyone who licensed the design is a stupid idiot who never went to law or business school, and would sign a licensing deal that can be revoked for no reason at any time.

The real business world is a little more complicated than that.

Re:I don't think ARM makes chips

[Culture20]

Apple will probably have to pay large sums to end the licensing contracts, but that may be worth it to harm competitors. Even if they can't do that, they would be able to not-license any newly developed processors.

Re:Keep hating Microsoft while Apple goes unchecke

[Jugalator]

We do? There have been tons of complaints on Apple's strategy in terms of the App Store, and now lately the programming language limitations in the SDK, as well as every time they try to silence a blogger. There have been lots of voices of moving to Android Market, and so on.

Well, unless you just read the Apple fansites of course. But that gives an as objective view on things as just reading a Linux fansite, or Windows fansite (yeah, they exist).

Re:Be very afraid.

[Nadaka]

You are aware that the TI OMAP processors are licensed ARM processors, are you not?

Re:I don't think ARM makes chips

[Andy Dodd]

Slight distinction here:

The OMAP core is ARM-based and licensed from ARM, but the chip itself is designed by TI (and I think manufactured by them too)
The A4 core is ARM-based and licensed from ARM, designed by Apple (one of the ex-PASemi teams), and manufactured by Samsung

Die Apple

[bbqsrc]

Don't hijack the one fucking processor that has a chance of possibly dethroning the wintel empire with its vast quantities of low energy and epic win.

Re:Be very afraid.

[andy1307]

When Steve dies, he'll be turned into a God and prayed to by His followers. After all, he's already a demi-god.

South Park will show Steve Jobs in a bear costume.

Re:Be very afraid.

[dmesg0]

Intel is no longer ARM's licensee, they sold their ARM-based CPUs to Marvell a few years back. A lot of other companies are: Samsung, Qualcomm, TI, Broadcom, Marvell, NXP, ST, Apple and many many others.

Re:Be very afraid.

[snooo53]

Would that really be such a bad thing (Apple winning the PC wars)? I would trade a less powerful CPU for a better UI and consistent hardware any day, assuming the price was similar. Those seem to be the two things that differentiates Apple from their competitors. However, I wonder if they had been dominant if there would have been such a push at Apple for a better "user experience" in the first place.

Re:Be very afraid.

[liamoshan]

His followers will be recognized by the rimless glasses, black faux turtlenecks, and razor stubble.

When cursing others, the Follower, aka FanBoy...

Change "Follower" to "Macolyte" and you're onto a winner

Re:Be very afraid.

[Hognoxious]

the link to the article lists it as speculation and there is no mention of 8 billions - just 5.4 billion value

It mentions 5.2 billion. But it has some odd symbol like a squiggly L in front of it. Probably Lira or something, I think that's what they use in France.

Re:I wonder what the DOJ will have to say...

[Xest]

Look at the fuss the EU made over the Oracle/Sun deal because of MySQL and there's far more competition in the database market.

This deal wouldn't stand a chance of getting past the EU without at minimum severe restrictions on what Apple could do with ARM once they took it over.

Re:Be very afraid.

[betterunixthanunix]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/194387/apple_rejects_pulitzer_prize_winners_app.html

Yes, it would be a bad thing if Apple had won the PC wars.

Re:Only 8?

[Joce640k]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall of Steve Jobs' office if Google offered more.

(Or even Microsoft - aren't they rumored to be moving their data centers to ARM?)

"exponentially less powerful"

[Joce640k]

Ack. DId you just invent that phrase or are you misremembering it from a PowerPoint presentation you saw last month?

Either way you need to learn a bit more math.

Google story from yesterday

[Dancindan84]

Was Google already aware of this? They bought a small processor company Tuesday. Would make sense if they wanted to make sure manufacturers of their phones didn't suddenly end up without access to processors.

Re:Be very afraid.

[Narishma]

Nice of you to rewrite what the parent said for those who skipped the rest of his comment right after the sentence you quoted.

History repeating itself?

[WebCowboy]

As has been stated before, Apple has had a relationship with ARM holdings since it was founded (as Apple had equity in the company when it was founded out of the ashes of the Acorn computer company). Apple didn't abuse its position then. Of course, Apple wasn't so big and successful at the time, whereas now it dominates in mobile media players and holds a great deal of market share with the iPhone.

Here is an interesting thing though...history seems to be repeating itself, just with different players. In the 1970s MOS technologies created the 6500 series of microprocessors--the 6502 being the famous, very long lived design. They had a fab and produced their own designs but also ended up licensing the design out to others (the two biggest being Rockwell International and Western Design Center, the latter was founded by a former MOS employee who held a patent on part of the 6502 design that entitled him to a license). Just as the 6502 started taking off in the desktop calculator market Texas Instruments went and started making calculators too--using their own chips that suddenly became much more expensive for third parties.

Jack Tramiel at Commodore was facing possible extinction of his entire electronics line because of the TI-induced shakeout (Older folks, especially from Canada, might remember Commodore as a maker of typewriters and filing cabinets and calulators). Pretty much all calculator makers who used TI chips suddenly found it impossible to compete with TI and those who couldn't re-engineer their designs quickly or rely on other products quickly died (MITS probably wouldn't have been pushed to do the Altair if it hadn't been pushed out of the calculator market by TI). Jack didn't want to fall victim to a bullying chip maker and figured to compete Commodore had to make its own chips like TI, so Commodore bought MOS technology.

Here is an interesting fact: Commodore continued licensing to Rockwell and WDC, and continued to make and sell chips openly on the market, including to direct competitors in the personal computer market. Every single Apple I and Apple II and 8-bit Atari (from the 2600 game up to the 130XE computer) and 8-bit Acorn/BBC Micro was built around a chip design controlled ny Commodore (and maybe even manufactured in their fab). Though Commodore made for a very tough competitor, there is no evidence they overtly abused their position as a chip supplier to dominate the market and in fact Apple and Atari both outlived Commodore. So, it is possible that with Apple owning ARM this scenario could happen again.

So how will history repeat itself? Apple cannot ever revoke current licensees rights to use their current designs, but they could "pull a TI" (even against TI ironically) and either make it very expensive to continue licensing or could refuce to renew, meaning competitors/third-parties could not make NEW ARM-based chips. Alternatively, they could go the "Commodore way" and maintain ARM as a separate (though wholly owned) company that keeps operating as normal, and all our Android phones would be safe.

Of course, Jobs runs the show and being the techno-Nazi that he is might be tempted to go for world domination/industry control by cutting android hardware sales off at the knees. However he is still pretty smart and knows that would be a very bad idea. Consider:

* ARM designs are used EVERYWHERE. Industrial processors, embedded computer systems and so on where Apple doesn't compete--in fact the majority of ARMs revenue relies on non-mobile/wireless business. They'd lose more than they'd gain by shutting out those licensees.

* If they were overtly selective in suppliying chips or licensing their IP to others then they'd face the wrath of antitrust regulators that are much more aware and active in high-tech now.

* They could cut out Android or WinMo hardware makers but both those platforms can be ported quite easily to other hardware. In fact those platforms already run on non-ARM platofrms. Apple could run roughshod over HTC but it

Re:They wont be having my shares

[houstonbofh]

They are not having my shares. I have had them since Acorn put ARM Holdings public, and I have A LOT of these shares.

Unless "a lot" is 51%, you may not have a choice.

Re:Only 8?

[mrdoogee]

According to Wikipedia, he resigned from Apple's board in August of last year due to avoid a conflict of interest between Apple and Google.

Re:Be very afraid.

[mrdoogee]

Hyperbole: The best thing EVER!

Re:Be very afraid.

[Stormwatch]

Well, lira does mean pound in Italian.

Monopolies are not illegal

[SgtChaireBourne]

It is not illegal to have a monopoly, it is illegal to abuse that monopoly. Whether Apple gets a monopoly or not in the handset market is not relevant until it looks like the position is being abused.

It seems like slashdot is getting fewer and fewer user posts and more and more M$ related astroturf.

Re:Monopolies are not illegal

[caitsith01]

It is not illegal to have a monopoly, it is illegal to abuse that monopoly. Whether Apple gets a monopoly or not in the handset market is not relevant until it looks like the position is being abused.

It seems like slashdot is getting fewer and fewer user posts and more and more M$ related astroturf.

YANAL, and you're wrong.

It IS relevant before deals get done, and mergers can be blocked in the US, UK, Europe and Australia and no doubt many other places without any "abuse" being demonstrated.

Here we're talking about one of the major players in the smart phone market acquiring the ability to significantly harm the competitiveness of ALL of the other players by controlling an essential component of smart phones. It would be surprising if that is allowed to happen.

Re:There is competition in embedded processors

[dfghjk]

Apple is only happy when they are using old, obsolete, failing technology that the industry has moved on from and that they can claim is superior and exclusive to them. They would do this so that they could deny competitors technology and claim that the best hardware comes from them. Competitors will simply move to other suppliers and that will succeed in the long run. Apple has never proven itself able to drive hardware successfully over time and this would be typical of their failed attempts in the past.

What?

[rickb928]

"Apple has long been more evil than Microsoft, just less successful at it."

Um, Apple owns its share of the market. OWNS. No one does what Apple does, not do they do something else as well, or as profitably.

Microsoft is faced with competitors on every side. They are in a constant fight for preservation. And then there is their struggle with themselves, to maintain what quality they can in the face of such product diversity, demands of the market, and the other pressures including being an antitrust target every single day.

Apple is very, very successful. Microsoft also. But in different ways. If I had to buy stock in either, it would be in Apple. If I had to predict who will be around in 50 years, it is almost a toss-up to me. That is only because Apple is actually Steve Jobs. His successor will have to have the same depth of vision, same drive, same demands and standards.

And in that light, actually, Microsoft is a toss-up because so far it has transitioned from Gates as CEO. A big step.

But Apple is better at what it does than Microsoft is at what IT does.

Dual core Power?

[kabloom]

Why would they want to do that if we all know that Apple's iPad is based on a Dual-core Power chip?

Antitrust ?

[billcopc]

Being able to control who gets to use the processors (and, more importantly, who doesn't) would give Apple a huge advantage over its competitors.

Wouldn't that be considered anti-competitive behaviour, punishable with a massive lawsuit and eight-digit fines ? I mean, I don't want to start any rumours, but I get the funny feeling Google's legal team could kick Apple in the teeth.

Not an issue. Perpetual licenses, see?

[SEE]

There are three ways to license ARM IP:

Perpetual (Implementation) License
The perpetual license offers an ARM Partner the necessary rights to perpetually design and manufacture ARM technology-based products.

Term License
This license is suitable for a Partner who wishes to design a number of ARM technology-based products within a specified time-frame (usually three years). The manufacturing rights are perpetual.

Per Use License
The Per Use license is available on selected ARM IP and gives an ARM Partner the right to design a single ARM technology-based product within a specified time-frame (usually three years). The manufacturing rights are perpetual.

Notice that all three allow perpetual manufacture. Further, there are plenty of companies with the perpetual (implementation) license. So there is no way in the short or medium term an Apple takeover could seriously threaten current device-makers. In the long term, maybe the ARM available to people other than Apple would stagnate, but the long term is plenty of time to switch to, say, a new mobile device-optimized version of the current embedded PowerPC chips.

Re:Delusional

[jcr]

Alcoa dropped the price of aluminum by something around 80% over the time when it was the only supplier in the United States. Carnegie never actually obtained a monopoly, but he came close by dropping the price of steel rails by over 90%. When a monopoly isn't government-enforced, the only way it can maintain its position is by keeping their prices low enough to deter new competitors from entering the market.

-jcr