4 ms·

Can anyone explain why ARM have not been bought by Intel, MS, Apple or Google yet?

Avshalom 11y ago
Probably no one thought it was worth it, right up until everyone (particularly shareholders) thought that if they held out for X years it would be a company right up there with IBM, Intel, Apple, MS, Google at the top of the tech food chain.
cstross 11y ago
The success of ARM's strategy is based on them being an impartial supplier of designs that facilitate low power consumption and some degree of interoperability at the assembler level. If anyone buys it, they kill the goose that lays the golden egg. All those corporations run their own vertically integrated stack to some extent -- if you were Apple, would you be willing to trust an ARM design licensed from MS or Google? (Or Intel, when the whole point of Apple's CPU strategy going back 22-25 years is to be mostly CPU-independent after getting burned twice in a row by MC680x0 and then PowerPC)? If you were Samsung, would you license an ARM design from Apple-owned ARM? And so on.
- zump 11y ago
  Imagination did buy MIPS though.
  - zurn 11y ago
    MIPS was almost dead then though. They weren't bought out because they seemed successful. Possibly a hedging move against ARM's dominance.
- Andaith 11y ago
  Interesting, I'd assume the opposite. If you're apple, and you're licensing ARM designs, can you risk Google or Microsoft, or Oracle buying ARM? Can you risk them changing the licensing terms, or stop licensing altogether? How come none of them want to be the first to buy, securing their rights to ARM, and instead enjoy the risk of a competitor buying ARM?
  - stephencanon 11y ago
    You pay lawyers to negotiate contracts carefully to protect against that risk, you don't need to buy the company.
timthorn 11y ago
Apple did have a very significant stake in ARM - 20% from memory. It has been argued that the investment saved Apple, as they were able to sell the shares for a significant return at a time when Apple was struggling financially.
- scholia 11y ago
  Pretty sure, from memory, that the ARM holding company was originally 40% Acorn, 40% Apple and 20% VLSI Technology Inc (VTI). Acorn used VLSI Technology's software tools to develop the first ARM chip, and VLSI made it.
pja 11y ago
Given ARMs dominance of the mobile processor industry for any large tech company to buy them would invite the close scrutiny by anti-trust authorities that none of the major tech companies are particularly keen to attract. Since ARM is happy to license their designs to all & sundry, what would be the benefit to any individual company of buying them out? Little to none: Even if you want to invest in your own CPUs and add your own special sauce (like Apple) then you can do that much more cheaply than the cost of buying out the company by simply buying the appropriate licenses. You can’t buy them and lock out your competitors because the anti-trust regulators would have a fit. I’m sure every large tech company has looked at the pros & cons and decided that the status quo is by far the best option for them & that the same arguments apply to their competitors.
prodmerc 11y ago
Intel played with ARM for a while, then gave up on it for some reason. Really not sure why, their PXA processor series was really good...
pjc50 11y ago
MS have historically been welded to x86. Intel would attract antitrust actions, and would also rather continue to fight than admit failure by buying in tech. Apple have historically changed processors a lot, and their hardware side is notoriously a cloud of outsourced factories and not owned by Apple; something of a virtual organisation. Google have shown little interest in chip design or indeed hardware; remember, Android is a Java VM running on a free operating system on various OEM hardware.

Probably no one thought it was worth it, right up until everyone (particularly shareholders) thought that if they held out for X years it would be a company right up there with IBM, Intel, Apple, MS, Google at the top of the tech food chain.

cstross 11y ago

The success of ARM's strategy is based on them being an impartial supplier of designs that facilitate low power consumption and some degree of interoperability at the assembler level. If anyone buys it, they kill the goose that lays the golden egg. All those corporations run their own vertically integrated stack to some extent -- if you were Apple, would you be willing to trust an ARM design licensed from MS or Google? (Or Intel, when the whole point of Apple's CPU strategy going back 22-25 years is to be mostly CPU-independent after getting burned twice in a row by MC680x0 and then PowerPC)? If you were Samsung, would you license an ARM design from Apple-owned ARM? And so on.

zump 11y ago
Imagination did buy MIPS though.
- zurn 11y ago
  MIPS was almost dead then though. They weren't bought out because they seemed successful. Possibly a hedging move against ARM's dominance.
Andaith 11y ago
Interesting, I'd assume the opposite. If you're apple, and you're licensing ARM designs, can you risk Google or Microsoft, or Oracle buying ARM? Can you risk them changing the licensing terms, or stop licensing altogether? How come none of them want to be the first to buy, securing their rights to ARM, and instead enjoy the risk of a competitor buying ARM?
- stephencanon 11y ago
  You pay lawyers to negotiate contracts carefully to protect against that risk, you don't need to buy the company.

timthorn 11y ago

Apple did have a very significant stake in ARM - 20% from memory. It has been argued that the investment saved Apple, as they were able to sell the shares for a significant return at a time when Apple was struggling financially.

scholia 11y ago
Pretty sure, from memory, that the ARM holding company was originally 40% Acorn, 40% Apple and 20% VLSI Technology Inc (VTI). Acorn used VLSI Technology's software tools to develop the first ARM chip, and VLSI made it.

pja 11y ago

Given ARMs dominance of the mobile processor industry for any large tech company to buy them would invite the close scrutiny by anti-trust authorities that none of the major tech companies are particularly keen to attract. Since ARM is happy to license their designs to all & sundry, what would be the benefit to any individual company of buying them out? Little to none: Even if you want to invest in your own CPUs and add your own special sauce (like Apple) then you can do that much more cheaply than the cost of buying out the company by simply buying the appropriate licenses. You can’t buy them and lock out your competitors because the anti-trust regulators would have a fit. I’m sure every large tech company has looked at the pros & cons and decided that the status quo is by far the best option for them & that the same arguments apply to their competitors.

prodmerc 11y ago

Intel played with ARM for a while, then gave up on it for some reason. Really not sure why, their PXA processor series was really good...

pjc50 11y ago

MS have historically been welded to x86. Intel would attract antitrust actions, and would also rather continue to fight than admit failure by buying in tech. Apple have historically changed processors a lot, and their hardware side is notoriously a cloud of outsourced factories and not owned by Apple; something of a virtual organisation. Google have shown little interest in chip design or indeed hardware; remember, Android is a Java VM running on a free operating system on various OEM hardware.