Slashdot Mirror
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."
A leg is about 20% of your body mass, so...
-mkb
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.
-Will P.
There's nothing like a nice warm cup of unfounded speculation to start the day off right.
You do know the company was jointly founded by Apple, Acorn and VLSI in the first place?
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.
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.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
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.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
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).
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.
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
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.
You are aware that the TI OMAP processors are licensed ARM processors, are you not?
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
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.
Palm trees and 8
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.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
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
"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.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.