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>I think nVidia could run into some serious anti-trust issues if they tried to interfere with the ARM ecosystem. I seriously doubt it, Broadcom - Qualcomm sale
by Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
>I think nVidia could run into some serious anti-trust issues if they tried to interfere with the ARM ecosystem.
I seriously doubt it, Broadcom - Qualcomm sale was blocked because there were concerns that the former would inhibit the telecom technologies development of the latter, resulting in strategic disadvantage to U.S. But, in the case of supposed Nvidia-ARM sale I see the quite opposite i.e. huge strategic advantage to U.S. and so I feel the anti-trust might not be at least State initiated.
But, would other U.S. Big Tech who have invested heavily in the ARM ecosystem oppose this is what to be seen. But even there, I wonder whether their fear could be substantiated? What if Nvidia just signs a good agreement with them to alleviate their fears? After all Apple and Qualcomm were strangling each other throats, now see where they are now.
In the end, I think the deal would just go through and it's us who are worried about the future our Raspberry Pis among others things who would feel lost(and actually loose).
- pmontra 6y agoWouldn't the EU antitrust look into that too or is this going to be out of their jurisdiction after Brexit?
- stingraycharles 6y agoI believe as long as ARM sells their hardware in the EU, they are able to look into antitrust issues.
- qubex 6y agoNot that I disagree with you, but ARM doesn’t sell hardware—they sell licenses to designs of the aforesaid. Nonetheless, don’t forget that nVidia, insofar as it sells hardware in the EU, would definitely be within the scope of local anti-trust authorities. I don’t see this being much liked by those authorities, either. nVidia is clearly interested in doing this deal because it will give them competitive advantages, and it’s pretty clear by their behaviour versus other firms (including Apple!) that they have so much of that already that they don’t have to “play nice”. Giving them further purview to do as they please is basically what anti-trust is designed to prevent, whether you focus on industry relations or the ascendant on consumers.
- bobthepanda 6y agoEven if the EU did not have jurisdiction British authorities are not very keen on large mergers either. British resistance caused American Pfizer to walk away from a potential merger with British AstraZeneca.
- shrikant 6y agoI'm not sure how much sway British authorities would have, since ARM is now wholly owned by SoftBank?
- panpanna 6y agoIn a merger of this scale all the big powers (US, EU, China, and I assume also UK now) have basically veto right. There are countless examples where country 1 has stopped a merger between a company from country 2 and one from country 3.
- vageli 6y ago> In a merger of this scale all the big powers (US, EU, China, and I assume also UK now) have basically veto right. > There are countless examples where country 1 has stopped a merger between a company from country 2 and one from country 3. From what I've seen, the only method of enforcement for a third-party country is to ban the sale of goods in their respective markets following the merger (like GE/Honeywell in the early 2000s). Would that even be possible in this case?
- panpanna 6y agoNot sure how this is enforced. Generally the merger falls apart if there are any indications of this happening. Don't forget that these are public companies and a stopped merger can affect their stock. Besides, major investors would eat the board alive if they put the company in such situation.
- nabla9 6y agoAntitrust regulators power is determined by the size of the market, not the location of the company HQ. Antitrust regulators for big markets like the US, EU can effectively block mergers from any internationally operating company. Both AMD and Nvidia need access to EU - their customers certainly do.