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Apple signs new agreement with Arm that goes past 2040
- mattl 3y agoWhen did Apple sell their shares in Arm? Arm was cofounded by Apple, Acorn and VLSI.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- macintux 3y agoAfter the Newton was shut down, 1998, according to this: https://www.cpushack.com/2010/10/26/how-the-newton-and-arm-saved-apple-from-death/ https://www.cpushack.com/2010/10/26/how-the-newton-and-arm-s...
- gumby 3y agoThey were really out of cash. Jobs convinced Gates to give them $150MM as well (Apple's existence helped MS with antitrust; Apple desperately needed the cash).
- macintux 3y agoAs I recall, the dash was less important than the commitment to keep Office on the Mac. (Maybe IE too?)
- gumby 3y agoThey really were desperate for cash.
- EricE 3y agoBut as Jobs pointed out at a conference where this came up, the perception that the Mac had legs (because Microsoft still was committed to them) was far more important than the money. If people don't have confidence in your platform, all the money in the world doesn't mean squat.
- tzs 3y agoThey had around $1.2 billion in cash reserves at the time.
- teepo 3y agoGreat find! I really dig these circular stories that shape the electronics history. The story behind ARM has always fascinated me. The search for low power with efficiency kind of seems like the holy grail of the time. The Acorn story reminds me a lot of the Po Bronson novel "The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest: [1] 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/306422.The_First_20_Million_Is_Always_the_Hardest https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/306422.The_First_20_Mill...
- snvzz 3y agoNo doubt a publicity move agreed between Apple and ARM, ahead of ARM IPO.
- photonbeam 3y agoThe lack of detail is troubling, will new prospective shareholders be happy about pricing given the sheer time length. Was Apple trying to get this in specifically before IPO
- gumby 3y ago> Was Apple trying to get this in specifically before IPO Only, I'm sure, to the degree it gave them some advantage in negotiating with ARM. ARM's IPO is troubled, for reasons I haven't been following, but I am sure this helps them.
- pdpi 3y agoAnything that sounds like Apple making a 15+ year commitment to the ARM platform is going to benefit ARM's IPO massively, so the real question is what Apple got from this.
- itiro 3y agoStability, legal leverage. It’s likely been hashed out in response to nVidia’s attempt to buy ARM. https://www.gq.com/story/tim-cook-global-creativity-awards-cover-2023 https://www.gq.com/story/tim-cook-global-creativity-awards-c... Tim Cook: we are very much focused on the long term. If ARM ends up being acquired, Apple can unleash the lawyers to demand adherence to their 40 year deal.
- _w1tm 3y ago> If ARM ends up being acquired, Apple can unleash the lawyers to demand adherence to their 40 year deal. Hate to break it to you but it’s not 2003 anymore. It’s barely a 20 year deal.
- tedunangst 3y ago> But given how much Apple relies on Arm’s designs for the custom chips powering its most popular and profitable products, like the iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch, in addition to the upcoming Vision Pro, it signals that Apple plans to continue utilizing Arm’s technology platform for a very long time to come. But Apple doesn't rely on Arm designs for anything? I think it's just sloppy writing, but I'm not sure I'd trust the analysis that follows weak reporting.
- wmf 3y agoApple relies on the ARM ISA so this new agreement may cover ARMv9 or something. If you want to argue that an ISA is not a "design" journalists don't understand the difference.
- ksec 3y ago>But Apple doesn't rely on Arm designs for anything? Of course they do. ARM started is still offering a lot of embedded design.
- teepo 3y agoThat's not quite accurate based on the filings. Rather it should read that ARM has existing agreements with a number of companies, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, even Nvidia. The ARM architecture is so ubiquitous that everyone wants a piece. I kind of think of ARM as a DMZ: The business model of licensing IP to a broad range of clients means that a lot of companies have a vested interest in ARM remaining a neutral party. We've seen with Nvidia and others that ARM isn't a clean acquisition target, so now everyone gets a place at the table, and thus license security for the long term. It's a bit similar to OpenAI, and how I think that in today's market, no regulator would allow a major tech company to acquire them.
- nxobject 3y agoAre there any historical examples of such a company - ubiquitous yet still a small fish, slightly troubled corporate history, but too important to be acquired by someone else?
- ChrisRR 3y agoI'd never heard of the term DMZ used in a computing context. For those like me who didn't know, it does mean De-Militarised Zone
- ysleepy 3y agoIt has been used in the context of firewalls forever. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMZ_(computing) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMZ_(computing)
- throw0101c 3y agoAnd by "forever" it is meant ~1994; see Cheswick and Bellovin (§3.1): > Up to this point, we have used the words “firewall” and “gateway” rather casually. We will now be more precise. A firewall, in general, consists of several different components (Figure 3.1). The “filters” (sometimes called “screens”) block transmission of certain classes of traffic. A gateway is a machine or a set of machines that provides relay services to compensate for the effects of the filter. The network inhabited by the gateway is often called the demilitarized zone (DMZ). A gateway in the DMZ is sometimes assisted by an internal gateway. Typically, the two gateways will have more open communication through the inside filter than the outside gateway has to other internal hosts. Either filter, or for that matter the gateway itself, may be omitted; the details will vary from firewall to firewall. In general, the outside filter can be used to protect the gateway from attack, while the inside filter is used to guard against the consequences of a compromised gateway. Either or both filters can protect the internal network from assaults. An exposed gateway machine is often called a bastion host. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Securit... * https://archive.org/details/firewallsinterne00ches https://archive.org/details/firewallsinterne00ches Ingham and Forrest wrote a good history of firewalls: * https://www.cs.unm.edu/~treport/tr/02-12/firewall.pdf https://www.cs.unm.edu/~treport/tr/02-12/firewall.pdf
- vermaden 3y agoPity ... RISC-V is so much better perspective ... and free.
- snvzz 3y agoI don't think this deal excludes Apple from using RISC-V. What it does is secure their ability to still use ARM for a while.
- bhouston 3y agoPatience. RISC-V is an unstoppable freight train but it isn’t yet up to speed. RISC-V is not yet ready for the high end needs that Apple has. RISC-V doesn't yet have the single core performance nor the ability to scale to many cores like ARM does -- or at least I haven't seen it. I think that when RISC-V can do this and is competitive with ARM, Apple could look at it. Apple isn't married to ARM forever, remember it used to be Motorola, then IBM PowerPC, then Intel x86 and now ARM. Given that Apple just did the transition to ARM, I do not expect they will look around for the ARM successor for a while. But a decade from now it wouldn't be surprising for them to consider RISC-V, at that point its capabilities should rival ARM if not exceed it while also being much more easily customized.
- snvzz 3y agoNot in hardware you can buy, yet. But there's e.g. Ascalon[0], design lead by Wei-han Lien, who previously led M1 at Apple. 0. https://tenstorrent.com/risc-v/ https://tenstorrent.com/risc-v/