4 ms·

Apple has never been a majority shareholder of ARM? I think the most they had was 20%, and that is many many years ago.

zimpenfish 6y ago
Pretty close - their initial investment seems to have been 30%. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-s... "Apple has invested about $3 million (roughly 1.5 million pounds) for a 30% interest in the company" Also from that link, this amusing sentence: "Some analysts speculated that Apple might be eyeing ARM chips for use in a future notebook-sized computer"
- klelatti 6y ago
  It was actually 43% https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/09/how-arm-has-already-saved-apple---twice https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/09/how-arm-has-alrea...
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    I can't find any contemporary reporting that says it was 43% - from what I can see, the first mention of 43% seems to come from this - https://www.cultofmac.com/97055/this-is-how-arm-saved-apple-from-going-bust-1990s/ https://www.cultofmac.com/97055/this-is-how-arm-saved-apple-... - which is bonkers wrong about the initial investment ($1.5b!). Do you have anything pre-dating this nonsense article which says it was 43%?
    - klelatti 6y ago
      page 38 http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2015/04/102739951-05-01-acc.pdf http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201... Edit: Ah I see Cult of Mac quoted Hauser. Well Hauser was a director of Acorn at the time. Also Robin Saxby talks about Apple and Acorn investing $1.5m and VLSI $250k so with some shares for staff that would be about 43%.
      - zimpenfish 6y ago
        tl;dr: 43% might be right. Saxby talks about £1.5M from Apple and according to https://fxtop.com/en/historical-currency-converter.php?A=1500000&C1=GBP&C2=USD&DD=27&MM=11&YYYY=1990&B=1&P=&I=1&btnOK=Go%21 https://fxtop.com/en/historical-currency-converter.php?A=150..., £1.5M is just about $3M which I guess clears up the $3M number.
        klelatti 6y ago
        I actually checked companies house but sadly the company (the original Arm Holdings) concerned no longer exists!
giancarlostoro 6y ago
Apple was one of the companies that was involved in what is today known as ARM from Wikipedia: > In the late 1980s, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology started working with Acorn on newer versions of the ARM core. In 1990, Acorn spun off the design team into a new company named Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.,[30][31][32] which became ARM Ltd when its parent company, Arm Holdings plc, floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in 1998.[33] The new Apple-ARM work would eventually evolve into the ARM6, first released in early 1992. Apple used the ARM6-based ARM610 as the basis for their Apple Newton PDA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture

Pretty close - their initial investment seems to have been 30%. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-s... "Apple has invested about $3 million (roughly 1.5 million pounds) for a 30% interest in the company" Also from that link, this amusing sentence: "Some analysts speculated that Apple might be eyeing ARM chips for use in a future notebook-sized computer"

klelatti 6y ago
It was actually 43% https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/09/how-arm-has-already-saved-apple---twice https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/09/how-arm-has-alrea...
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  I can't find any contemporary reporting that says it was 43% - from what I can see, the first mention of 43% seems to come from this - https://www.cultofmac.com/97055/this-is-how-arm-saved-apple-from-going-bust-1990s/ https://www.cultofmac.com/97055/this-is-how-arm-saved-apple-... - which is bonkers wrong about the initial investment ($1.5b!). Do you have anything pre-dating this nonsense article which says it was 43%?
  - klelatti 6y ago
    page 38 http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2015/04/102739951-05-01-acc.pdf http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201... Edit: Ah I see Cult of Mac quoted Hauser. Well Hauser was a director of Acorn at the time. Also Robin Saxby talks about Apple and Acorn investing $1.5m and VLSI $250k so with some shares for staff that would be about 43%.
    - zimpenfish 6y ago
      tl;dr: 43% might be right. Saxby talks about £1.5M from Apple and according to https://fxtop.com/en/historical-currency-converter.php?A=1500000&C1=GBP&C2=USD&DD=27&MM=11&YYYY=1990&B=1&P=&I=1&btnOK=Go%21 https://fxtop.com/en/historical-currency-converter.php?A=150..., £1.5M is just about $3M which I guess clears up the $3M number.
      - klelatti 6y ago
        I actually checked companies house but sadly the company (the original Arm Holdings) concerned no longer exists!

giancarlostoro 6y ago

Apple was one of the companies that was involved in what is today known as ARM from Wikipedia: > In the late 1980s, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology started working with Acorn on newer versions of the ARM core. In 1990, Acorn spun off the design team into a new company named Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.,[30][31][32] which became ARM Ltd when its parent company, Arm Holdings plc, floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in 1998.[33] The new Apple-ARM work would eventually evolve into the ARM6, first released in early 1992. Apple used the ARM6-based ARM610 as the basis for their Apple Newton PDA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture