Breaking news: Apple may be poised to buy ARM | Hacker News Reader

Breaking news: Apple may be poised to buy ARM

computerworlduk.com

13 pointsdreemteem8 comments

That would be a real pity, the ARM architecture is used in many devices that promote openness and to see apple take control of it could potentially cause real problems.

If they're willing to use weird license terms on their software it stands to reason they'll do the same with the hardware, and plenty of productlines depending on the ARM processor will have to look for a company that is not owned by people hell bent on controlling what happens with the stuff once sold.

Any product competing with iphone, ipad, ipod or some other apple product would do well to avoid that situation, but if they're dependent on the ARM architecture right now a switch could be very problematic.

For now it seems this is just a rumour, but the ARM stock spike shows that there are plenty of people that believe the rumour.

The original article that started all this is here:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-2382...

Buying ARM and shuttering up the business would be spending money to deny competitors a component (more exactly, future versions - the current ones are a done deal).

Might not even work very well. ARM has design expertise and probably patents on specific ways to implement things (e.g. register twiddling, buses, that sort of stuff).

Anyone can go design a processor that implements an instruction set (the I.S.Architecture), if they have deep enough pockets to avoid being stomped to death by patent infringement lawsuits (fair or unfair).

And the ARM ISA is not the only game in town, just the one most used.

I am at a loss to understand how a supposition can be termed "breaking news".

I know that Hacker News seems to be subtitled "Apple News" these days but could we stick to things that are actually news?

If this goes through you can expect some pretty heavy shockwaves through the gadget market. Almost everybody using the ARM in a gadget right now is in some way or other in competition with apple.

Imagine your 400# gorilla competitor suddenly gaining control over a critical resource for your product.

I'd be worried.

The connection to non-Apple word is quite obvious - ARM is _very_ popular architecture, used by many, many semiconductor producers (Atmel, Samsung etc.)

Neither your reply nor jacquesm's address OP's actual comment - as important as the supposition may be, that doesn't make it "breaking news".

True, it could lose the 'breaking news', if it wasn't news it shouldn't be here in the first place, the title has clearly been modified, the original is "Is apple targeting ARM for takeover bid?"

There's something to it judging by the stock market though, 5 million shares do not change hands just like that, so I would consider it 'news' and worth reading.

Business Insider[1] has some decent points arguing against this, but I disagree with their suggestion that Intel might buy ARM.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/no-apple-will-not-buy-arm-int...

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