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Why is ARM selling itself? May be I am missing something here but if Qualcomm can generate a bulk of their revenues through licensing fees, shouldn't ARM be bri

Why is ARM selling itself? May be I am missing something here but if Qualcomm can generate a bulk of their revenues through licensing fees, shouldn't ARM be bringing in more? It feels like going public would be a profitable route for their investors. Wonder why they are opting for that.

smitty1110 6y ago
ARM is owned by SoftBank, who has had a very bad year and a half. I guess they just want cash, not to take it public.
- softwaredoug 6y ago
  The irony of WeWork causing a great product like ARM to need to be sold off...
  - pstuart 6y ago
    Irony redux: even if WeWork wasn't a trainwreck, this pandemic would have killed it.
    - beervirus 6y ago
      It wouldn't have been great in the very short term. But there's an argument that mid-long term, the pandemic will be good for WeWork.
      - hobofan 6y ago
        And what would that argument be? That the increase in unemployment leads to more new businesses being founded that can somehow miraculously afford luxury(-priced) offices?
        beervirus 6y ago
        That a lot of businesses are deciding they don't need as much full-time office space as it seemed like last year. Long term leases are expensive. On-demand, short-term leases are looking more attractive.
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notmyfriend 6y ago
Softbank who is completely in the hole due to their continuously bad investments is the seller :)
jannes 6y ago
ARM is wholly owned by an investor called SoftBank, who is desperate for cash right now, because they messed up with WeWork.
tw04 6y ago
ARM isn’t selling itself. SoftBank bought ARM several years ago. I would imagine all the cash they hemorrhaged on wework has finally forced their hand.
kev009 6y ago
Wireless technology is a patent minefield. CPUs generally aren't because the techniques for internals are old, and internal design, manufacturing, and especially validation (where intel fell flat lately) methodologies dominate the costs and quality. For much of ARM's recent volume use in MCUs and slightly larger embedded devices, there is credible threat from first party usage of RISC-V (see WD, Nvidia). Access to the ISA itself can be of high value.. see x86 and s390x for prime examples. Although I don't really see how ARM could pull that off outside being an acquisition like this, and making the licensing process onerous enough that people move to buying chips from nvidia instead of doing their own designs. In such a scenario, RISC-V can become a credible threat to phones too, and the server thing pundits keep pushing for the past 15 years never happens. So there is a lot of value here, but it's pretty hard to grow as a pure licensing play as ARM has been since there are many risks and opportunities for price compression.

smitty1110 6y ago

ARM is owned by SoftBank, who has had a very bad year and a half. I guess they just want cash, not to take it public.

softwaredoug 6y ago
The irony of WeWork causing a great product like ARM to need to be sold off...
- pstuart 6y ago
  Irony redux: even if WeWork wasn't a trainwreck, this pandemic would have killed it.
  - beervirus 6y ago
    It wouldn't have been great in the very short term. But there's an argument that mid-long term, the pandemic will be good for WeWork.
    - hobofan 6y ago
      And what would that argument be? That the increase in unemployment leads to more new businesses being founded that can somehow miraculously afford luxury(-priced) offices?
      - beervirus 6y ago
        That a lot of businesses are deciding they don't need as much full-time office space as it seemed like last year. Long term leases are expensive. On-demand, short-term leases are looking more attractive.

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notmyfriend 6y ago

Softbank who is completely in the hole due to their continuously bad investments is the seller :)

jannes 6y ago

ARM is wholly owned by an investor called SoftBank, who is desperate for cash right now, because they messed up with WeWork.

tw04 6y ago

ARM isn’t selling itself. SoftBank bought ARM several years ago. I would imagine all the cash they hemorrhaged on wework has finally forced their hand.

kev009 6y ago

Wireless technology is a patent minefield. CPUs generally aren't because the techniques for internals are old, and internal design, manufacturing, and especially validation (where intel fell flat lately) methodologies dominate the costs and quality. For much of ARM's recent volume use in MCUs and slightly larger embedded devices, there is credible threat from first party usage of RISC-V (see WD, Nvidia). Access to the ISA itself can be of high value.. see x86 and s390x for prime examples. Although I don't really see how ARM could pull that off outside being an acquisition like this, and making the licensing process onerous enough that people move to buying chips from nvidia instead of doing their own designs. In such a scenario, RISC-V can become a credible threat to phones too, and the server thing pundits keep pushing for the past 15 years never happens. So there is a lot of value here, but it's pretty hard to grow as a pure licensing play as ARM has been since there are many risks and opportunities for price compression.