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SoftBank Considering Possible Sale of Arm Holdings as Apple Gears Up for Arm-Based Macs
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It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the Mac. In the grand scheme of all the ARM products out there, it's not such a big change.
(But just for fun, a conspiracy theorist could conclude that SoftBank thinks the Mac ARM transition will go badly, ergo this is ARM's high point, so time to bail!)
Yes, that's true. But ARMv8-A is good for at least another decade or two. It's like x86-64. Nobody is hitting 64-bit constraints.
So effectively, even if Apple could purchase ARM Holdings from the UK owners just to scuttle it, the effort would be pointless because virtually everyone who wants ARMv8-A already has a perpetual license.
Being the company they are I bet Qualcomm would do almost anything to get ARM so they can continue to exploit everyone and their grandmother.
Well, SoftBank is in bad shape so they might as well IPO this puppy, get their hands on as much cash as they can, and then buy it back for a fraction of the cash they generated from the IPO when the market crashes next.
About the only justification for an Apple purchase that I can think of would be to avoid future patent trolling.
As many have noted, the anti-trust implications of acquiring ARM are substantial. Typically, Apple buys technology in order to make it proprietary. That works well with small, relatively young companies that have yet to build influential roles in the industry. However, there are far too many other businesses dependent on ARM for Apple to shut down access to ARM's products and technology.
A fair amount of ARM's market value lies in its ongoing development of new product - product that Apple does not use because Apple is already doing it in-house with excellent results. Would Apple run a chip R&D business if it was not using the end product? Would the rest of the industry trust Apple to make a best effort to develop new product that was highly competitive with whatever Apple continued to produce in house?
One thing Apple's extremely unlikely to do would be to take over ARM and then use the same ARM chips in its own products that ARM sells to the rest of the industry. One of the key benefits of taking chips in-house as Apple has done is the total secrecy to develop unique capabilities.
As many have noted, the anti-trust implications of acquiring ARM are substantial. Typically, Apple buys technology in order to make it proprietary. That works well with small, relatively young companies that have yet to build influential roles in the industry. However, there are far too many other businesses dependent on ARM for Apple to shut down access to ARM's products and technology.
A fair amount of ARM's market value lies in its ongoing development of new product - product that Apple does not use because Apple is already doing it in-house with excellent results. Would Apple run a chip R&D business if it was not using the end product? Would the rest of the industry trust Apple to make a best effort to develop new product that was highly competitive with whatever Apple continued to produce in house?
One thing Apple's extremely unlikely to do would be to take over ARM and then use the same ARM chips in its own products that ARM sells to the rest of the industry. One of the key benefits of taking chips in-house as Apple has done is the total secrecy to develop unique capabilities.
I'm fairly sure the U.S. Gov't will NOT allow AAPL to own a controlling interest in ARM.
ALL other options are on the table, however.
ALL other options are on the table, however.
This could be the best market play for Apple since Randolph and Mortimer cornered the frozen concentrated orange juice market.
Steve Jobs disliked the idea of a PDA and Newton was not anything he would have approved. If there was no Newton, there was no need for ARM at Apple.
Softbank's investing "strategy" has always been a mystery to me. Lengthy investment in perpetual money-loser Sprint, massive spending on the WeWork pyramid scheme, basically everything they do looks like either a sucker chasing an obviously bad bet or throwing good money after bad on a failing bet.
As for why now, that's easier--they just lost an absolutely ungodly amount of money on Sprint, WeWork, and various other catastrophically bad investments and are desperate for cash, so they're selling off things that are actually still worth something.
As for why now, that's easier--they just lost an absolutely ungodly amount of money on Sprint, WeWork, and various other catastrophically bad investments and are desperate for cash, so they're selling off things that are actually still worth something.
As many people have said already, this has to do with Softbank and their precarious financial position, period. They made quite a few poor bets that have all unravelled recently and they are hemorrhaging money. They just sold off a large portion of their T Mobile stake as well. If they were in better shape, they would have held onto it. It makes no sense to sell their T Mobile stock right now. The company is 1-2 years away from seeing their valuation increase tremendously. But Softbank needs the money now, so they are looking for valuable assets to sell. ARM might fit into that category, which is why they are exploring the sale.
It's actually a very good time to sell it, as the value of their share would be extremely high.
Why not? Apple seems to have made "somewhat effective" use of ARM without it. 😉
SoftBank perceives that this asset has now become strategic for the deepest-pocketed technology investor in the world.
ARM is a core and ISA designer not that important a buy, you still have to design all the rest GPU, memory controller and other peripherals. The only advantage one can have is to buy it and become exclusive supplier of ARM, or monopolise the market like Intel did with x86. Surely something like Samsung might be interested which can buy ARM and then price the chips as they want and kick Qualcomm out of the game or increase royalty pricing. If Apple buys it, it may want to kill the license to the core design of these chip for everyone else. Which would be even more interesting, all of a sudden the rest of mobile industry may not have chips for their phones. A more cynical thing to do would be to buy it and always reserve the latest core design for oneself and release cores from two generation back for the rest off the market.
Softbank never misses the chance to lose money, get out at the wrong time, or be left holding a bag.
I don't see Apple having any not to use any upcoming ARM designs. If the current architecture isn't good enough, Apple is quite capable of producing its own design for future processors.
