10 ms·
ARM is a brilliant (if not the poster-boy) example of why the UK government should be investing in new technology companies rather than car manufacturing and ba
by sambeau 15y ago
ARM is a brilliant (if not the poster-boy) example of why the UK government should be investing in new technology companies rather than car manufacturing and banking.
- jahewson 15y agoEspecially as ARM originated from Acorn, whose success came from manufacturing the BBC Micro, for a publicly funded organisation (the BBC).
- gaius 15y agoAhem, Acorn paid the BBC a fee for every Beeb sold, as a licensing fee on use of the logo. Acorn were also almost overlooked in favour of a company called Grundy, which had government backing, but inferior technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundy_NewBrain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundy_NewBrain
- peterstjohn 15y agoOn the other hand, the BBC Micro would almost certainly not have been the success it was without the Beeb and the lift it gave to Acorn in the educational market.
- jahewson 15y agoLook at it as very well-priced advertising, after all the BBC effectively promoted their product. They nearly lost out to Sinclair Research as well, but that's a well known story...
- gaius 15y agoThe BBC were careful never to say "Acorn" on-screen (same as they never said Sellotape, it was always "sticky-backed plastic", to the amusement of the entire population).
- allertonm 15y agoI actually had a NewBrain, think it's still around in my parents' attic somewhere. I did quite a bit of real paying work on BBC Micros back in the day, and think they were great - but reading the way people tell the story today, one would be given the impression that the NewBrain was some kind of grim socialist piece of junk. It was actually a pretty decent bit of kit, quite a bit better quality than many of the other micros on the UK market at the time. In an ironic turn, the company I worked for doing the BBC stuff later moved into Grundy's old premises in Teddington after they went bust.
- swombat 15y agoTo be fair, via TSB, the UK is investing in new technology companies... not sure how that compares to their investment in car manufacturing, though. However, afaik the main "investment" in banking was to save the banks that were going bust. Disclaimer: I might be completely wrong about the above!
- frobozz 15y agoAnd yet, according to: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/509 http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/509 "If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain"
- ataggart 15y agoThe poor state of car manufacturing and banking would seem to argue against inflicting "government investing" on new technology companies.
- chalst 15y agoThe banking industry managed to wreak itself without serious government investment. The trouble was an absence of effective deterrents to bankers seeking dangerously high levels of leverage.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoARM employs about 2 000 people [1]. They're definitely a huge boon for the British tech community and competitiveness, but justifying government support for such a small employee base would be untenable. [1] http://www.arm.com/about/company-profile/index.php?setcookie=classic http://www.arm.com/about/company-profile/index.php?setcookie...
- gaius 15y agoNorthern Rock employed 5000.
- nl 15y agoBank bail-outs aren't about employment, they are about protecting people and other business from losses in assets in the banks.
- sycren 15y agoMost of the 2000 may be highly skilled or at least a large proportion to that of a bank, increasing funding in such a company may increase the number of people taking up science and engineering disciplines in education.
- arethuza 15y agoHow many of those 2000 are in the UK?
- lgeek 15y agoMost of them.
- Symmetry 15y agoThere's also all the other small companies that benefit from being near ARM, for instance the chip design team in Britain my company picked up.
- ajross 15y agoYes. There's a temptation, because they both "make CPUs" to view ARM as the "next Intel", but it's not like that at all. Intel is an industrial manufacturing company. They happen to manufacture CPUs that they've designed, but "what they do" (or at least, where their money comes from and where the bulk of it goes to) is manufacturing. In the ARM world, all that cash flow goes through TSMC, Samsung, TI, Global Foundries, Fujitsu, etc... Basically none of it goes through the UK. ARM's model, of course, is absolutely the future of semiconductor design. But it's not going to bring an Intel-sized industry to the UK.
- gaius 15y agoI suppose you are too young to remember "picking winners", Harold Wilson, British Leyland, Red Robbo... Or more directly, Grundy and their NewBrain vs Acorn... Historically, government meddling in industry in the UK has been a disaster.
- adaml_623 15y agoSerious question. Was it a disaster or did they just pick the losing team? Sometimes the government picking a loser can still cause a market to expand.
- gaius 15y agoWell, they picked one winner - Leyland - and force-merged them with all the losers, in the hope that Leyland's magic would somehow infuse them. Instead, it destroyed them all. Some of the brands, like Jaguar, Daimler, Land Rover, etc live on. But not as British companies.
- maratd 15y ago> Was it a disaster or did they just pick the losing team. The government always picks the losing team. The winning team doesn't want anything to do with the government.
- GFischer 15y ago
- andrewmu 15y agoI think many people are assuming this means direct investment but maintaining a high quality, accessible education system is arguably more important.
- nl 15y agoMeh.. ARM only employs ~2000 people, not all of whom are in the UK. That's hardly a mass employer like the manufacturing sector is.