I read the article. The promises are as empty as Kraft's promise to Cadbury staff they would keep the factories open in the UK.
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UK Chip Designer ARM to Be Acquired by Japan's Softbank for $31.4B
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I'm not discounting what goes into a fab. Creating a fab requires a significant investment in capital and R&D expertise. However, once it's created it's relatively easy to start mass producing chips (compared to the work that goes into designing them).
It's a well established fact in the semiconductor industry that the toughest part is designing the actual processor. By a mile. At least it USED to be well established - until Apple starting making the worlds most advanced ARM processors. Then suddenly the credit goes more to the fabs and less to the designer (Apple).
That's it, keep making assumptions about me because you don't like what I say. Don't get upset because you were wrong. Hell, I made an incorrect statement in this thread about Exynos in other phones. I didn't cry about it, I owned up to my mistake.
If you want to challenge anything I said about Apple processors and processor design in general, then have at it.
First it's not based on ARM micro architecture since they don't use any ARM architecture designs, they use an instruction set which means that the instruction decoder used by their design is able to decode the specified ISA. It means only that their design understands a certain format in the instructions, nothing else.
Second you state, as if a great surprise, that Apple doesn't manufacture the chips which is wrong since they have to validate their designs, what you've identified, correctly, is that Apple doesn't handle the mass production which is nothing but good business since those factories are extremely expensive to build and maintain. Also I've never seen Apple state that they manufacture anything, they always state that they design their products and some of the tools used to build them and the manufacturing is left to its partners.
Yes, proprietaty non-standard ports are ugly and the the one and only company still using them is...
If Apple is 'Apparently' So amazing at chip design, leaving everyone in their amazing wake.
One can only ponder why they have to wait for Intel, AMD, or in another dimension Nvidia to supply them with the goods to make computers with.
I mean, hey, why not just design your own chips from scratch then?
hmmmmmmm?
One can only ponder why they have to wait for Intel, AMD, or in another dimension Nvidia to supply them with the goods to make computers with.
I mean, hey, why not just design your own chips from scratch then?
hmmmmmmm?
Kraft was acquired by HJ Heinz. They spun the cookie/candy/etc business off as Mondalez.
Most operating systems are designed with x86 chips in mind.
Using the A series chips would require compilation from top to bottom of every single application and means most libraries would no longer be compatible with macOS, which also automatically removes the ability to run Windows on any Mac or any Windows application through Wine or similar.
These are just the architecture changes problems, now you have to think of performance: in its best day no A series chip can even remotely compete with the Intel chips present in macs and they cannot compete with the AMD gpus used in macs or the integrated ones.
Also it makes no sense to compete against these companies, they have decades of expertise on their fields, it's like trying to play against NBA players, they're great at what they do and you'd need years to reach their level (assuming you could).
Apples work in their A series chips is fantastic, taking into account the time they've been doing it and the speed improvements they've been able to achieve but they're used on a system with very specific characteristics for which they're specially designed and they're great at their required TDP but are unmatched for the giants of Intel at the 35/45 TDP level.
You could of course ask why they couldn't just stick multiple A9 chips together to create a competing offer (excluding the issues from architecture changes) but they'd have to either create amazing hardware to make sure everything is running at their best speed (no multiple cores waiting for nothing) or rewrite the OS to take advantage of this solution but writing good concurrent/parallel systems is considerably hard.
So in an a nutshell: break compatibility with the worlds most used OS and multiple libraries/applications, require complete recompiling of everything (hoping no bugs show up because someone wrote code under a specific assumption of the CPU architecture, compete against multi-billion dollar companies on their fields in which they have decades of expertise and be forced to hack some solution since their current implementation simply can't compete on pure performance levels.
They have lots of money but this would be a spectacularly hard task which would cost lots of money and time.
Verdict: at this point in time this is a completely stupid idea, in the future it might viable if they can provide similar performance levels and solve the compatibility issue it could be a great move.
I agree.
I'm happy they didn't I just said that they should have, from their point of view
Kraft closed the UK chocolate factories years before being acquired and subsequent renaming to Mondalez. I don't know what point you're trying to make.
The value of pound sterling has hit the floor due to Brexit. A sale of this magnitude is effectively theft as the deal offered is so poor we'll never be able to pay our way in high tech industry in the global economy ever again.
This is not "foreign investment", this is a hostile takeover.
There's a word for that. BLOATWARE.
"Personally", I want my picture processing to come from a company that is invested in their products, not one that is happy to neglect product lines for years while it blows billions on a fancy new office block.
I do too but I'd also like for Apple to become more software oriented so that native software exclusives help drive their Mac sales and offer more to end users than the current situation where end users are being screwed over by Adobe not to mention Adobe's laziness causing macOS users grief.
Tell that to users of Shake, FinalCutStudio and Aperture.
Apple doesn't care about mac sales anyway.
It would be supergood for the industry and users, if Adobe would have real competition.
Credit on a message board? So? Can you point to how this exists in the media or from tech thought leaders?
It seems like every time a company that's remotely related to what Apple does gets bought for billions of dollars, everyone is rushing to proclaim that Apple is doomed and that it will regret passing on the deal. I have yet to hear a shred of substantive arguments in favor of the deals. It seems that like the media, people are getting carried away with the massive price tag, thinking that the bigger the price tag, the better.
M&A is not an ego contest. It's not meant to generate buzz or headlines. M&A is supposed to make strategic sense. You say Apple should have bought ARM. Show me how Apple owning ARM enhances its business. Apple has been doing just fine licensing ARM's design and customizing it. How would owning ARM help Apple put together a better processor?
It would make strategically no sense for Apple to have bought ARM, except to perform anti-competitive behaviour
if you look at how much Apple pays for licensing from ARM, it's PEANUTS compared to the 34b that its being sold for. Apple doesn't need the whole company, nor anything else the company does. they would be overspending by billions to own something they get now for a few million.
not every solution is "apple should just buy them"
I always got the feeling with Steve Jobs is that he had a sentimental reason for liking Mac but I don't think Tim Cook actually has any interest in technology or sentimentality when it comes to Mac. Personally i think they could make a decent wad of cash but catering to engineers, scientists, creative types etc. because of Linux's failure to go beyond a niche not to mention the lack of big name mainstream titles not to mention many Windows users who want an alternative (outside of the pcmasterrace). Apple could achieve that whilst still catering for the iOS crowd but it appears that Tim is hell bent on learning that if you rely on a small niche of products for growth that it'll come back to bite him in the backside.
Apple decided not to, assuming Apple knew that other entities wanted to purchase.
Besides, competition is good and monopolies are bad. Apple attempting to buy something used in so many competing devices would be reeking of anti-competitiveness and that's bad. At least when government does it, but when we salute our favorite logo we want them to do more to govern us than any government ever would -- it seems... except companies exist to profit for itself, not its customers or competition or anything else. Governing genuinely and legitimately involves everybody. People don't understand that? But I digress.
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Jobs wasn't exactly different, he knew the iPhone/iPad was the new major-yet-niche product line that would cannibalize PC and Mac sales, circa 2010 and back when he was living and in control of his company - don't people keep up with the news?
Or maybe Jobs hated Cook despite the veneer of friendship and chose him, knowing lightning never strikes thrice.
IME the pcmasterrace types are the one complaining about Windows and talking about Linux the most. It's going to be a brave new world for the PCMR types fairly soon I think
We all know it means eventually it goes over, just because they're keeping it how it is now, doesn't mean they wont ever move it. Also it means al the major design decisions go on in Japan... this is not a UK company any more.