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Apple to Make an Offer to Acquire ARM?
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They already bought P.A. Semi. Why buy another chip manufacture? Just to gain market share? I don't think it would be worth 8 billion. All apple has to do is release a new iphone clone (i.e. iFlex...wearable iPhone / iPod) and they will make 8 billion.
Plus, I truly doubt that would be approved.
Plus, I truly doubt that would be approved.
Owning ARM doesn't give them anything extra other than at some point blocking others from enhancements to the ARM instruction set or architecture.
Owning Intrinsity and PA Semi and having a full architectural licence, which is rumoured they do have. They can take the ARM architecture in many different unique routes. They benefit from the healthy ARM ecosystem of companies with ARM processor engineers/software developers/driver developers. Closing off that community, puts all the onus on Apple and basically relegates ARM to being a niche player. Even if it is a big Niche. Within a couple of years you'd start to see phones based on mips and intel instructions sets and ARM's glorious dominance of mobile and embedded products would be over.
Apple is practical and full of hard nosed business men. If it benefitted them to lay down with Adobe and play nice they would. But at the moment Adobe's mobile offerings are too little too late, and Apple is making the gamble that they will be the premier smartphone platform and it won't matter that flash is available on Android or Windows 7 phones.
In 3 words 'never gonna happen'.
I agree that they want their own CPU oufit, but purely for the mobile market. This is the newest and most free flowing area for development. I don't believe that Apple is happy that they can't push the custom designs that they need now and in the not so distant future.
ARM Acquisition - Good or Bad?
ARM, as been said before, powers about 95% of Mobile Phones these days, and Apple buying it (depending what they do with ARM) can be good or bad.
Good: Apple could buy ARM and turn it into something like "AppleRM"
. They would "filter" which companies get chips and ones that do not.
Bad: They would keep ARM all to themselves and not let ANYONE get anything out of them. All mobile phones would switch to something like Intel Atom chips or something else (I have a Intel Atom netbook, and it's pretty good, except that is has Windows XP). I have a Nintendo DSi, which has 2 ARM Chips (ARM7 and ARM9 I think) and I would hate for the next DS model (3DS) to switch to something else. OH PLEASE OH PLEASE DON'T GO THE BAD WAY APPLE!!!!
ARM, as been said before, powers about 95% of Mobile Phones these days, and Apple buying it (depending what they do with ARM) can be good or bad.
Good: Apple could buy ARM and turn it into something like "AppleRM"
. They would "filter" which companies get chips and ones that do not.Bad: They would keep ARM all to themselves and not let ANYONE get anything out of them. All mobile phones would switch to something like Intel Atom chips or something else (I have a Intel Atom netbook, and it's pretty good, except that is has Windows XP
). I have a Nintendo DSi, which has 2 ARM Chips (ARM7 and ARM9 I think) and I would hate for the next DS model (3DS) to switch to something else. OH PLEASE OH PLEASE DON'T GO THE BAD WAY APPLE!!!!
I wonder how much work Apple have to do to get OSX onto the RISC architecture? Perhaps they have a secret in-house version running on it, like they had the x86 version of OSX running since inception.
They already have much of the work done, really. iPhone OS X isn't all that different from Mac OS X underneath. I'm sure they have in-house versions of Xcode that can compile ARM versions of Mac OS X apps too.
PEOPLE: PLEASE stop commenting on things where you don't know what you're talking about.
FTC would have no way to stop it.
Antitrust? Not likely to be an issue. Either it's the CPU market - in which case Intel still holds the lion's share - or it's a mobile CPU market - in which case AMD already has a dominant position. Switching ownership wouldn't change that.
Who says Apple would lock others out (aside from a few of the less well informed people here)?
Apple would presumably continue to license it - otherwise, it would be a waste of money. Competitors have other options. They might temporarily suffer a little, but they could switch to other chips.
The more logical thing is that Apple would continue to improve and market the chips, creating another cash flow stream. It would give them the flexibility to improve the designs for their own systems as well as getting revenue from others. They might conceivably raise the licensing fees slightly (but not too much or they'd lose customers). They might also create a small team to optimize chips for Apple products, but they can't leave other customers too far behind, if at all. The smartest move is to run it as a profit center and let the group maximize profits by constantly improving its products - which is what Apple excels at.
Apple would gain quite a bit:
1. Ability to better tailor chip designs for Apple products, possibly gaining a modest amount in performance or battery life.
2. Elimination of licensing costs for Apple chips (technically, Apple would still pay the licensing costs, but they'd roll back into the same pockets). The effect would be reduction of costs by a substantial amount.
3. Ability to ensure that Apple products can use the latest products.
Whey they do NOT gain:
1. The ability to compete with Intel for Macs. Give it up, folks. It's not going to happen any time soon. ARM chips do not have the power to handle mainstream computers. I guess it's conceivable that with Grand Central, they could design a system with 10 ARM chips that would do the work of a single i3, but I doubt if there would be any cost or performance advantage.
2. Ability to lock everyone else out. That would be just a bad move for the reasons given above.
Obviously, it has to make sense from a financial perspective. ARM's finances are not something particularly attractive now. Even at current share prices, they're trading at 10 times revenues or 80 times earnings - which is way too high. So Apple would have to be able to justify grossly overpaying in terms of the additional values listed above. From a purely financial perspective, it's a loser, but Apple has the money and may see that the added influence in the market would justify it.
I just had a vision of Universal binaries sporting three different lumps of code, PPC, X86 and ARM!
Oh? Surely the PPCs of the old days must be worlds apart from a modern mobile varient?
Think long term for apple not for industry. Apple need to make sure that they don't get locked out or to subject them selves to another company controlling what they do long term.
Having control of a company would give them more freedom of how to take the iPad, iPhone, and iPod where ever they want.
Has anyone thought also that maybe, a wild guess, that its possible the A9 could be use in an Apple TV. Take that hardware in a different direction, with OS 4 as its OS and maybe just maybe Games to the Apple TV?
As long as Android remains a desparate collection of incompatible versions/screen sizes/hardware features, it has no chance of being the Windows of the handset market.
History in this case will NOT repeat itself.
I don't think its good to force all mobile devices into the same hardware specs, display sizes and features just to ease App and OS development. For many people a device like the iPhone is much too big, for others it may be even to small. Some people want cameras in a phone, others don't. Some want GPS, others don't. Some want a feature monster wile others just want it affordable. There is no "one fits all" size,feature set and price point for phones.
As long as Apple follows the strategy to keep them all identical they will be forced to ignore other segments of the mobile market (like real small "pocket" phones, cheap entry level devices, very high end geek devices etc.).
I think the winning mobile OS will be the OS that learns to handle that situation well. Like a desktop OS that can run on a netbook and on a 16-core-32GB-dual 32'' screen system and everything in between.
No mobile OS is able to deliver that yet. If nobody is able to deliver that in the future there will be
enough room for other solutions than iPhone OS and Android.
Christian
So what you are saying is:
Apple can't dominate by competition alone - they need to block the competition's 'fuel' supply.
?
Stranger in a Strange Land
So many errors, so little space.
All you fanboys are blind to the facts before you.
If Steve Jobs/Apple "embraces competition" as you think, why does he sue everyone who even seems to emulate any of his products or features? He is a megalomaniac. I wants total control over every detail of his company, its products, and your perception of it/them. And, in the final analysis, Apple is a software company. The hardware is only there to achieve the functionality of the software. This is not to say that Apple does not make good products. It does. But you miss several important facts because of you rose colored glasses.
You misread the market. Nokia chose to go "cheap" to get volume. Apple chose to go expensive to get margin. It took them a long time, but it has worked for them. Now they can go after volume because they have the attention of the market. Now they can afford to drop margins a little to gain market share, if they want.
Monopolies are ALL about vertical integration. Oil companies like to control drilling, and refining and distribution. Vertical control creates horizontal control. Micro$oft went vertical too. They just stayed in software. And the stack isn't too deep inside a computer. They produce the OS and the apps, thus the APIs. Then they forced the hardware makers into exclusionary agreements to cut off other SW competitors. So all other SW makers have to make stuff that works with their OS. Bingo! Instant monopoly. Apple would like to do the same thing. Look how they are locking up the music and video content for the ipod, etc. Apple is absolutely NOT about open software. Dreamers.
Apple could buy ARM and satisfy the FTC by saying they would allow all current and future competitors to continue to license the products. No problem. Then all Apple has to do is fork the product development. One product line for them, another (or others) for everyone else. Simple. Of course, Apple's products will be better than everyone else's.
So many errors, so little space.
All you fanboys are blind to the facts before you.
If Steve Jobs/Apple "embraces competition" as you think, why does he sue everyone who even seems to emulate any of his products or features? He is a megalomaniac. I wants total control over every detail of his company, its products, and your perception of it/them. And, in the final analysis, Apple is a software company. The hardware is only there to achieve the functionality of the software. This is not to say that Apple does not make good products. It does. But you miss several important facts because of you rose colored glasses.
You misread the market. Nokia chose to go "cheap" to get volume. Apple chose to go expensive to get margin. It took them a long time, but it has worked for them. Now they can go after volume because they have the attention of the market. Now they can afford to drop margins a little to gain market share, if they want.
Monopolies are ALL about vertical integration. Oil companies like to control drilling, and refining and distribution. Vertical control creates horizontal control. Micro$oft went vertical too. They just stayed in software. And the stack isn't too deep inside a computer. They produce the OS and the apps, thus the APIs. Then they forced the hardware makers into exclusionary agreements to cut off other SW competitors. So all other SW makers have to make stuff that works with their OS. Bingo! Instant monopoly. Apple would like to do the same thing. Look how they are locking up the music and video content for the ipod, etc. Apple is absolutely NOT about open software. Dreamers.
Apple could buy ARM and satisfy the FTC by saying they would allow all current and future competitors to continue to license the products. No problem. Then all Apple has to do is fork the product development. One product line for them, another (or others) for everyone else. Simple. Of course, Apple's products will be better than everyone else's.
If Apple spent 8 billion on ARM, it would be a completely retarded move to shut down trade with other phone manufacturers. It would simply be a new revenue stream. That means they would earn money from every Apple device sold as well as every device using an ARM chip. Only fanboys could see Apple keeping ARM to themselves as a profitable move.
The benefit from owning ARM would come from in-house custom chips for better iPhone performance, that they could sell to others a few months after the phones release.
Lastly, people have to stop seeing companies as evil. Its simple capitalism, the goal is to make money. If you don't want to be a part of it then go live in the woods. If Apple wasn't an "evil" company they would be a bankrupt one. Same goes for Google, and Microsoft, Sony, Samsung... all of them
The benefit from owning ARM would come from in-house custom chips for better iPhone performance, that they could sell to others a few months after the phones release.
Lastly, people have to stop seeing companies as evil. Its simple capitalism, the goal is to make money. If you don't want to be a part of it then go live in the woods. If Apple wasn't an "evil" company they would be a bankrupt one. Same goes for Google, and Microsoft, Sony, Samsung... all of them
Of course. If apple owned ARM why would they prevent anyone from using ARMs in cars, household appliances, televisions, medical equipment, industrial applications etc. Apple makes non of these products.
Christian
I think this could be a good thing. looking at the vertical supply chain, it makes perfect sense... control, manufacture and design your products from the raw materials all the way to the final product. It ensures compatibility, quality (especially from Apple) and differentiates your products even more from the competition.
The other component of this is the graphics, and Apple has a recent history of having design / supply issues on it. This may alleviate some of those woes.
I don't believe that the FTC would take issue with this acquisition, assuming of course, that current license agreements would be honored. There are other suppliers out there, and I seriously doubt that Apple would "shut down" or "wall off" sales of it's product to other companies. If anything, it would increase competition with Intel's offering and some of the more obscure offerings from foreign companies.
As someone mentioned earlier, monopolies are not illegal. Abusing your monopoly is illegal and unethical. At any rate, a merger / acquisition of ARM would not constitute a monopoly. If INTEL bought AMD, that WOULD constitute a monopoly, and the FTC would definitely would not approve that, due to it being an anti-competitive sale. Apple would most definitely INCREASE competition in the market.
The other component of this is the graphics, and Apple has a recent history of having design / supply issues on it. This may alleviate some of those woes.
I don't believe that the FTC would take issue with this acquisition, assuming of course, that current license agreements would be honored. There are other suppliers out there, and I seriously doubt that Apple would "shut down" or "wall off" sales of it's product to other companies. If anything, it would increase competition with Intel's offering and some of the more obscure offerings from foreign companies.
As someone mentioned earlier, monopolies are not illegal. Abusing your monopoly is illegal and unethical. At any rate, a merger / acquisition of ARM would not constitute a monopoly. If INTEL bought AMD, that WOULD constitute a monopoly, and the FTC would definitely would not approve that, due to it being an anti-competitive sale. Apple would most definitely INCREASE competition in the market.
or wait.. it will be good for innovation because others will be forced to come up with their own chips (just like the iPhone forces others to come up with FINALLY good cell phones)
They're not good though. The batteries on them rarely last a day. The iPhone rarely lasts a day. Useless.
Plenty of cash to do the deed, would make Intel very happy to have all those new Atom customers.
FTC would not like it, Apple would have to sell to competition for a while. Probably promise to sell to competitors for the next two years. But they do not have to sell the new chips to competitors, this will allow them to move their business to ATOM. I think FTC would be fine with that and Apple gets to keep the best chip for themselves.
They probably are considering a way to marry OSX to dedicated hardware so they can kill of the hackingtouch. With special hardware, OSX would only run on Macs.
I think it is doable and FTC would approve if Apple promises to sell to competitors for the next 2 years.
FTC would not like it, Apple would have to sell to competition for a while. Probably promise to sell to competitors for the next two years. But they do not have to sell the new chips to competitors, this will allow them to move their business to ATOM. I think FTC would be fine with that and Apple gets to keep the best chip for themselves.
They probably are considering a way to marry OSX to dedicated hardware so they can kill of the hackingtouch. With special hardware, OSX would only run on Macs.
I think it is doable and FTC would approve if Apple promises to sell to competitors for the next 2 years.
That would be a slap to Intel's face.
ARM are exceptional at low power but their GPU isn't up to much (the reason why Apple use ARM's competitor Imagination Technology's PowerVR).
ARM designs have run Acorn RISCOS in the past but it's not powerful enough for server or Mac Pro target market applications.
Mind you.. the temptation to pull out my old ARM assembler manuals would be tempting
stmfd r13!,{r0-r12,r14} ..... ldmfd r13!,{r0-r12,pc}