ARM CEO dampens talk of Apple acquisition, says 'nobody has to buy the company'
By Donald Melanson 
posted April 22nd 2010 6:25PM
posted April 22nd 2010 6:25PM
Apple buying ARM may not seem like the likeliest of rumors, but talk of an acquisition has been enough to send ARM shares to their highest point since 2002, which has now prompted ARM CEO Warren East to comment on the matter. While he's obviously pleased to see his company's stock doing so well, East says that "common sense tells us that our standard business model is an excellent way for technology companies to gain access to our technology," adding that, "nobody has to buy the company." Of course, saying that nobody has to buy the company doesn't exactly rule out the possibility of an acquisition -- Apple or otherwise -- and, last we checked, ARM's stock was still edging up higher into positive territory, so dampening talk doesn't seem to be dampening investors' interest just yet.
Agreed.
I'm sure if Apple wants some cool IP to themselves, ARM will sell them the IP separately and exclusively. No need to buy the whole company to get an edge.
@spin cycle
What in the hell are you talking about?
@Jaylittles531
I think he is trying to say that ARM can create something exclusive for apple and allocate resources as such while still making tons of money with going to the extreme of selling itself to Apple.
@spin cycle I HOPE AND PRAY APPLE DOES NOT BUY ARM OR ARMS IP. JUST ANOTHER THING FOR APPLE TO "F" UP AND CONTROL. AND TO TELL US WE DONT NEED FASTER CPU'S OR MULTIFUCTION, OR DUAL CORE, OR A CPU THAT WORKS. Apple sucks!
@Toshiba
Everyone loves posts typed completly in capitals.
@Jaylittles531 ARM made a deal to make StrongARM exclusive to Digital (later Intel). If Apple wants exclusive IP, ARM could do the same thing again.
@Toshiba If Apple buys ARM and causes problems for licensees, they will just move to MIPS.
@hajile
you're telling me Android, ChromeOS, WebOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, etc are all going to just get forced into at least a year long process to move to a generally slower architecture?
I'd like to see something like the FTC involved before anyone, especially Apple, take over ARM
@hajile
Move to MIPS? LOL .. ok fine .. but what if Apple buys MIPS too? MIPS would probably only cost a few million bucks.
@JS
The CEO is such a killjoy! There was such an interesting "discussion" going on here on engadget and flame wars and all... and he pissed on the parade... KILLJOY!!!
Nice this acquisition was dumb and too expensive anyways.
@Kwame Nkrumah
The Market Cap of ARM Holdings is only 2 billion. Apple can buy it on last quarters profits alone...and still have a billion left over. The question is will all the other phone makers get locked out of using ARM chips if Apple buys them. I don't see the deal getting through government regulation.
I'm sure such an acquisition would have violated anti competitive laws anyway
@nate345
The rumoured price was 8 billion.
@nate345
Actually if Apple somehow managed to pull this off, it would be the end of Apple. It would become Apple vs the World of technology companies. A lot of countries would come together to defeat their common enemy, an evil dictator... er... I meant a lot of companies would come together to defeat their common rival, Steve Jobs.
@camroncake I think you, and many others, judge anit-trust law to be much more restrictive than it is. In this scenario, the chip manufacturing division wouldn't grow at all (actually, depending on business strategy it could shrink quite a bit, but I assume that would be ignored for judging purposes). So, the fact that Apple is somewhat big in smartphones, and ARM is very big in smartphones, doesn't mean it'd be rejected because they do different core businesses.
It's when a big company, with a big market share in an area makes that market share increase that these things get put under a microscope, not when a big company finds a way to expand (even largely) into a new field.
@juanvaldez It is true that when a big company and a little one or even another big one with overlapping product segments merge with the result of a far greater market share that is considered by todays standards to be a monopoly. However, the idea of a monopoly and creating one are very different. In the late 19th century when the first large American corporations we beginning to gain their footings it was observed that monopolies were not being created by simply buying up all their smaller competitors, but instead a steal supplier would buy stake in a railroad, an iron mining company, a coal company, and a lumber mill. This would allow the company to manufacture its final product at a greater margin and prevent competitors from using the resources that were otherwise shared. Practices like this lead to empires like the rockefellers. Early antitrust laws were put in place to prevent unfair competitive practices that would make competition harder for another competitor due to the actions of said competitor. People generally make the mistake of identifying marketshare with antitrust issues simply because having a large marketshare is often the result of antitrust violations. While having a larger market share through acquisition of your competitors does increase brand awareness it does not directly affect your competitors ability to compete in the market, so if for example apple purchases palm with the intent to convert all palm customers to apple customers that would not be in violation of antitrust, but if they purchases palm as a means of eliminating the ability of a competitor such as HTC from using a viable alternative to Apple's OS then that would be a violation of anti trust. The most noteable example of anti trust in recent tech history has been MS, but keep in mind the solution was not to decrease the marketshare of windows or office, it was to allow consumers greater choice, thus making it a more equal playing field for competitors.
if apple was going to pay for it google would have probably payed more
@racerbmw
Ah... wise business decision...
You're aware Google does websites and basically...little text ads right?
@Wesscoast
where have you been living
google does much more than that and even if it did do that they have enough money to purchase ARM
are you aware of the android operating system?
@racerbmw: I lol'd.
@kidphat
im just making an assumption but maybe this guy is one of those iphone users that is not aware of anything besides iphone.
Im not trying to offend any iphone users but out of all the people that bought the iphone a good chunk of them are not aware of the alternatives that in the end are better
especially if you care if your phone has ARM components then you probably are a power user and iphone is not a phone for power users (not stock atleast)
@racerbmw Android can run on more than just ARM. While it would be difficult to get over, something else would rise up if ARM were bought out.
That being said, I don't see it happening. This is the sort of thing Apple bought PA Semi for.
@racerbmw
this would make more sense for google to buy as they can turn their servers farms into eco green server farms while still licensing ip to the community...
It would be nice if Apple bought them. Then if you spend an arm and a leg at the Apple store you will at least get an ARM back.
@CT .... you should stop talking now.
@Sled ^^ Lighten up, knucklehead! *gives noogie*
@CT
lol, you're so punny
@CT i see what you did there
@Sled
I thought that was pretty clever of him.
@CT got a LMAO out of me lol
*Sigh of relief*
I think anti-competitiveness laws would kick in if Apple tried to cock-block other phone makers from using ARM processors, but I was still a bit worried. Maybe they would use it to leverage their lawsuit against HTC even further.
@Nitesh
1. Apple was one of the companies that started ARM, and they owned a big chunk of it until the late 90s when they stopped developing the Newton.
2. Neither Apple nor ARM have any sort of monopoly, so there's no anti-trust issues that come into play.
3. Apple could theoretically stop licensing ARM designs to other companies, but that would just destroy the value of the company. Why would they do that? The numbers wouldn't add up.
What Apple could do, however, is control the direction of ARM development to favour Apple's needs, and they could also get the first crack at ARM designs, royalty free.
Those benefits *might* be worth the purchase price for ARM. Either way, Apple is certainly not buying some or all of ARM to kill it.
@Stanley: I have to disagree. Just like the FTC is trying to block Google's purchase of AdMob, they can do the same for a deal like this. This deal has anti-competitive written all over it, why? Apple is a competitor in a market sector and by buying the major producer of a technology in said sector could significantly hinder competition. The problem is once Apple purchase ARM, no one can prevent them from withholding future ARM technologies.
@Stanley
Apple and VLSI infused cash into ARM to get development on the ARM6 for their products. Apple then sold all the stock after ARM did what they wanted and was able to function on their own.
By your stupid logic, then many of these corporations belong to each other. Look MS bought out Apple stock to help them out when they were struggling. Apple owes MS big time right? What about MS? They should just merge with Intel and shut off macs then right? After all, there is AMD and other chip processors.
And what difference does it make if Apple was one of the major initial investors of ARM. Look at it this way. ARM was doing their low power consuming processors from the get go. Apple saw what they liked and gave them some cash to work on the ARM6 and then sold off its stock later on.
So tell me, how does the sequence of events above rationalize this acquisition and make it ok?. Who cares if Apple helped them financially early on. That doesnt take away from the fact that this is wrong.
I think youre just an Apple fanboy that wants this to happen. You sir, take fanboydom to the highest limits. You are willing to be unprincipled just to see your brand succeed. This is anti competitive. Plain and simple.
And this is from a guy who liked Apple from the beginning.
@kb24istrash Your sir references followed by insult, frankly, suck.
How's my style? Call 1-800-BE-STYLE.
@pavlindrom
Can you type something a bit more coherent. And if they do suck, I dont care. That doesnt take away from what I said bc you never retorted to any of it.
Dont like it, then too bad. Fanboy.
@kb24istrash Apple was one of the primary investors in ARM, when they were started by Acorn RISC Machines. When they ran into financial trouble in the 90s is when they sold off their share.
@kb24istrash
Does MS still have stock in APPL?
@xconan
Not anymore.
@s73v3r
Still, that doesnt change the fanboy reasoning that this is a good thing just because Apple was an initial investor. A lot of companies do this.
@kb24istrash
So it's good if you like Apple, not so good if you don't like Apple.
There's no need to be so hysterical about it, bub.
Unfortunately, that's the direction every company seems to go once they get big enough. At some point companies would rather buy up market share with dollars than work.
Dear ARM,
I can picture you doing some really awesome things in the future and soaring to be for mobiles what Intel is for desktops. Please don't sell yourself and fuck this up for consumers.
K. Thx. Bye
Engadget, you do know this is a horrible, horrible idea for consumers, right? If Apple bought ARM, all phone and chipset manufacturers would have to license the tech from Apple. It would be a horribly anti-competitive move. They could basically kill Android and Windows Phone 7 when the current licensed ARM tech becomes obsolete, forcing complete rewrites of the OS to be MIPS compatible or something.
@fischju
Wow.So according to you, this company with a current MCap of 2 Billion is the lynchpin to the whole future of mobile computing.
*slow applause
@Wesscoast
Protip: Your JesusPhone has tech done by ARM. Your JesusPad has tech developed by ARM (Apple gives the requirements), virtually every smartphone out there runs on ARM.
@Wesscoast
Considering about 98 percent of mobile phones have an ARM processor, you could say ARM has a rather large role in the future of mobile computing.
@Wesscoast
Yes. Every smart phone has an ARM chip in it. ARM holds all the patents and licenses them out to chip makers like TI, Nvidia, Qualcomm who create CPUs like the Cortex, Tegra, Snapdragon. If Apple bought ARM, do you think they would allow any new ARM chips to their direct competitors in the cellphone marketplace?
Kinda remains me of another guy who gave dumb quotes and skirted issues.
"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."
or
"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."
-- Donald Rumsfeld
http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/quotethis/a/rumsfeldquotes.htm