http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/05/06/what-apple-has-bought-and-what-it-hasnt/
Wikipedia’s List of mergers and acquisitions by Apple:
Let's take a look at them:
* 1997 Next (programming services). Value: $404 million
Ok, we know where a lot of Next went into Apple
* 1999 Raycer Graphics (graphic chips). Value: $15 million
A graphics accelerator company.
In 2008 Apple appointed 2 new people to the executive board -
Scott Forstall (Senior VP) for leading iPhone software development (he previously worked at NeXT)
"delivering the software at the heart of Apple's revolutionary iPhone including the user interface, applications, frameworks and the operating system"
Bob Mansfield (Senior VP) for Mac hardware engineering
"oversees the team that has delivered dozens of breakthrough Mac products including the MacBook Air and the all-in-one iMac line."
Forstall reports to CEO Steve Jobs, Mansfield reports to COO Tim Cook
He joined in 1999 - he was VP of Engineering at Raycer Graphics, before that, a Senior Director at SGI, responsible for the development of various microprocessor designs.
* 2000 NetSelector (Internet software). Value: NA
(Developer of software that allows parents to control what their children see and do on the Internet.…
* 2001 Astarte (DVD authoring software). Value: NA
* 2001 Source Technologies (graphics software). Value: NA
The article I believe means Vital Source Technologies
"one of the leading providers of XML-based technologies in the education industry. Vital Source provides the most comprehensive solution for health sciences schools"
* 2001 PowerSchool (online info systems services). Value: $62 million
http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/0,1000000375,39415335s,00.htm
* 2002 Nothing Real (special effects software). Value: $15 million
* 2002 Zayante (software). Value: $13 million
Firewire company amongst other things
"By acquiring Zayante, Apple is extending its commitment to FireWire as the premiere, high-speed digital interface solution,” said Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering."
* 2002 Silicon Grail Corp-Chalice (digital effects software). Value: NA
* 2002 Emagic (music production software). Value: $30 million
Logic Express
* 2006 Silicon Color (software). Value: NA
Responsible for producing FinalTouch color correction software.
* 2006 Proximity (software). Value: NA
"focused on developing and marketing advanced rich media asset management (RMAM) and workflow optimization software for the broadcast, creative-production, gaming and corporate industries.
"
* 2008 P.A. Semi (semiconductors). $268 million
A designer of (low power) chips.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/04/four-reasons-ap/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/apr/23/applebuyschipdesignerpase
Apple were apparently "within a hairsbreadth of doing a deal ahead of the Apple switch to Intel in 2005" How ahead we don't know - this would indicate Apple was serious about ARM for laptops.
From Engadget:
Seems like saying Apple won't put OS X on ARM is a little less strong an argument - Apple was seeing how their apps could be ported onto PA Semi's silicon. Apple's fingered as the getting a multiyear architecture license for its current and future technologies, from ARM Holdings.
(iPhone has ~ 5 ARM processor cores - contained in multiple chips from several different chip vendors afaik)
Is the reason we're not hearing about leaks because Apple's actually gone and bloody done it? Acutally got these chips to get merged (or ready to be merged by v4 iPhone in 2010)?
Just before Jobs announced Apple was transitioning to x86 processors in 2006, he was courting PA Semi for the MacBook lineup (Intel and Nvidia got that gig at the moment). Heck - if you read it - he didn't tell IBM till just before, and turned down Sony. They were making key decisions here. If they're been making an Intel version for years, why not ARM? No point to announce it at the WWDC, but sitll good to have in the back pocket.
The Register: apparently reported
that PA Semi had a close relationship with Apple in the months prior to the switch, and that the two companies were working together to gauge the feasibility of running native PowerPC-coded software on 2GHz dual-core chips that PA Semi claims run at only a third of the 21 to 25 watts consumed by Intel's Core Duo models.
After the gutting at the Intel deal, PA Semi mentioned they wanted to go after the embedded market and to sell chips for storage devices.
If there was ever a time to have this, wouldn't it be as we await a MB/MBP TDP friendly Nehalem?
Recent hires
Hard core graphics guys,
Raja Koduri - former Chief Tech Officer at graphics products group at AMD
Bob Drebin - former Chief Tech Officer at AMD, now Senior Director
Mark Papermaster - former IBM VP now Senior VP of Devices Hardware Engineering reporting to Jobs (alongside Mansfield presumably?) Leading Apple’s iPod & iPhone hardware engineering teams.
Richard Teversham - former Senior Director of business, insights & strategy for Xbox's European division
"The job he’s apparently signed up for with Apple is in an education-related capacity at their European office." Say what?
PA Semi
150 people, including
Peter Bannon - former VP of architecture
Leo Joseph - former COO
Jim Keller - former VP of engineering (DEC)
Wayne Meretsky - former Apple technical lead for Mac OS during the company's transition to PowerPC
Dan Dobberpuhl
Several worked on DEC's Alpha chip - one of the fastest microprocessors
on the market in the 90s.
Wouldn't the PA6T-1682M and similar chip's support for the Altivec floating point instruction set "that currently provides a massive speedup for multimedia and scientific Mac software" be tempting for Apple?
"At 2GHz, the chip consumes just 7 watts of power according to PA. Intel's Core Duo consumes between 21 & 25 watts"
Imagination Technologies
$4.8million bone to British SoC developer Imagination Technologies by buying 3.6% - a company "ideally positioned to integrate powerful graphics into a new chip design."
Would Apple threaten to double-cross Intel slightly, and join up with Nvidia if they didn't get the goods? Puts Intel's feet to the coals?
Proximity and PA Semi stick out as being unresolved, alongside Racyer Graphics.
On a lighter less long winded note
WIll the Touch get a non-A A-GPS? Apple went with the Hammerhead II. It's successor is potentially the Xposys
Power consumption "reduced by 50% over the previous generation...footprint has been reduced to fit into a printed circuit board area of only 26 mm sq[on the PCB]" which is darned tiny. - the chip itself is 3mm x 3mm
Infineon had been working with Global Locate for GPS technology (Hammerhead II). Broadcom acquired Global Locate, so Infineon sought a new partner - Epson GPS.
Whether the software based solution can match hardware based design is an issue potentially - not more info on that though.
Whatever - the power consumption should go down, and accuracy go up, just in time for increased in terest in PND/SatNav apps.
Onlive. Would be huge if Apple had an oar in it. Would certainly make an AppleTV interesting...
http://boesky.blogspot.com/2009/04/onlive-apple-acquisition-edition.html
Wikipedia’s List of mergers and acquisitions by Apple:
Let's take a look at them:
* 1997 Next (programming services). Value: $404 million
Ok, we know where a lot of Next went into Apple
* 1999 Raycer Graphics (graphic chips). Value: $15 million
A graphics accelerator company.
In 2008 Apple appointed 2 new people to the executive board -
Scott Forstall (Senior VP) for leading iPhone software development (he previously worked at NeXT)
"delivering the software at the heart of Apple's revolutionary iPhone including the user interface, applications, frameworks and the operating system"
Bob Mansfield (Senior VP) for Mac hardware engineering
"oversees the team that has delivered dozens of breakthrough Mac products including the MacBook Air and the all-in-one iMac line."
Forstall reports to CEO Steve Jobs, Mansfield reports to COO Tim Cook
He joined in 1999 - he was VP of Engineering at Raycer Graphics, before that, a Senior Director at SGI, responsible for the development of various microprocessor designs.
* 2000 NetSelector (Internet software). Value: NA
(Developer of software that allows parents to control what their children see and do on the Internet.…
* 2001 Astarte (DVD authoring software). Value: NA
* 2001 Source Technologies (graphics software). Value: NA
The article I believe means Vital Source Technologies
"one of the leading providers of XML-based technologies in the education industry. Vital Source provides the most comprehensive solution for health sciences schools"
* 2001 PowerSchool (online info systems services). Value: $62 million
http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/0,1000000375,39415335s,00.htm
* 2002 Nothing Real (special effects software). Value: $15 million
* 2002 Zayante (software). Value: $13 million
Firewire company amongst other things
"By acquiring Zayante, Apple is extending its commitment to FireWire as the premiere, high-speed digital interface solution,” said Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering."
* 2002 Silicon Grail Corp-Chalice (digital effects software). Value: NA
* 2002 Emagic (music production software). Value: $30 million
Logic Express
* 2006 Silicon Color (software). Value: NA
Responsible for producing FinalTouch color correction software.
* 2006 Proximity (software). Value: NA
"focused on developing and marketing advanced rich media asset management (RMAM) and workflow optimization software for the broadcast, creative-production, gaming and corporate industries.
"
* 2008 P.A. Semi (semiconductors). $268 million
A designer of (low power) chips.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/04/four-reasons-ap/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/apr/23/applebuyschipdesignerpase
Apple were apparently "within a hairsbreadth of doing a deal ahead of the Apple switch to Intel in 2005" How ahead we don't know - this would indicate Apple was serious about ARM for laptops.
From Engadget:
Seems like saying Apple won't put OS X on ARM is a little less strong an argument - Apple was seeing how their apps could be ported onto PA Semi's silicon. Apple's fingered as the getting a multiyear architecture license for its current and future technologies, from ARM Holdings.
(iPhone has ~ 5 ARM processor cores - contained in multiple chips from several different chip vendors afaik)
Is the reason we're not hearing about leaks because Apple's actually gone and bloody done it? Acutally got these chips to get merged (or ready to be merged by v4 iPhone in 2010)?
Just before Jobs announced Apple was transitioning to x86 processors in 2006, he was courting PA Semi for the MacBook lineup (Intel and Nvidia got that gig at the moment). Heck - if you read it - he didn't tell IBM till just before, and turned down Sony. They were making key decisions here. If they're been making an Intel version for years, why not ARM? No point to announce it at the WWDC, but sitll good to have in the back pocket.
The Register: apparently reported
that PA Semi had a close relationship with Apple in the months prior to the switch, and that the two companies were working together to gauge the feasibility of running native PowerPC-coded software on 2GHz dual-core chips that PA Semi claims run at only a third of the 21 to 25 watts consumed by Intel's Core Duo models.
After the gutting at the Intel deal, PA Semi mentioned they wanted to go after the embedded market and to sell chips for storage devices.
If there was ever a time to have this, wouldn't it be as we await a MB/MBP TDP friendly Nehalem?
Recent hires
Hard core graphics guys,
Raja Koduri - former Chief Tech Officer at graphics products group at AMD
Bob Drebin - former Chief Tech Officer at AMD, now Senior Director
Mark Papermaster - former IBM VP now Senior VP of Devices Hardware Engineering reporting to Jobs (alongside Mansfield presumably?) Leading Apple’s iPod & iPhone hardware engineering teams.
Richard Teversham - former Senior Director of business, insights & strategy for Xbox's European division
"The job he’s apparently signed up for with Apple is in an education-related capacity at their European office." Say what?
PA Semi
150 people, including
Peter Bannon - former VP of architecture
Leo Joseph - former COO
Jim Keller - former VP of engineering (DEC)
Wayne Meretsky - former Apple technical lead for Mac OS during the company's transition to PowerPC
Dan Dobberpuhl
Several worked on DEC's Alpha chip - one of the fastest microprocessors
on the market in the 90s.
Wouldn't the PA6T-1682M and similar chip's support for the Altivec floating point instruction set "that currently provides a massive speedup for multimedia and scientific Mac software" be tempting for Apple?
"At 2GHz, the chip consumes just 7 watts of power according to PA. Intel's Core Duo consumes between 21 & 25 watts"
Imagination Technologies
$4.8million bone to British SoC developer Imagination Technologies by buying 3.6% - a company "ideally positioned to integrate powerful graphics into a new chip design."
Would Apple threaten to double-cross Intel slightly, and join up with Nvidia if they didn't get the goods? Puts Intel's feet to the coals?
Proximity and PA Semi stick out as being unresolved, alongside Racyer Graphics.
On a lighter less long winded note
WIll the Touch get a non-A A-GPS? Apple went with the Hammerhead II. It's successor is potentially the Xposys
Power consumption "reduced by 50% over the previous generation...footprint has been reduced to fit into a printed circuit board area of only 26 mm sq[on the PCB]" which is darned tiny. - the chip itself is 3mm x 3mm
Infineon had been working with Global Locate for GPS technology (Hammerhead II). Broadcom acquired Global Locate, so Infineon sought a new partner - Epson GPS.
Whether the software based solution can match hardware based design is an issue potentially - not more info on that though.
Whatever - the power consumption should go down, and accuracy go up, just in time for increased in terest in PND/SatNav apps.
Onlive. Would be huge if Apple had an oar in it. Would certainly make an AppleTV interesting...
http://boesky.blogspot.com/2009/04/onlive-apple-acquisition-edition.html
