News SoftBank signs deal to buy ARM Holdings

In a way, that's a little sad. One of the reasons I liked ARM was because of it being British. I have very little British heritage but I like diversity in the computer industry. Almost everything is either American, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or depending on your political standpoint, Taiwanese. There aren't a whole lot of global-scale European companies. Or, at least companies that are strictly European (so, Nokia for example doesn't count thanks to Microsoft). But hey, at least SoftBank seems to want to add more British employees, which is nice. I hope to see that their investment makes the ARM architecture more competitive. Lately they seem to have been getting good enough that they're pushing Intel out of the mobile territory, which is great. Intel really needed a punch to their ego.

 

Agreed it's sad but for once the UK company getting snapped up hasn't gone for a song, and technically the heritage is being preserved in spirit at least, by the BBC Micro Bit (unless those are just rebadged Raspberry Pi's). It is annoying that after the big payoff that is it and the profits will go and stay overseas even if no-one's losing their job.

 

ARM doesn't actually make that much in profit, couple of hundred million a year at most. Not peanuts but compared to the likes of Google and Apple, it's a minnow.

 

Sucks. More of our industry getting sold off.

 

The real question is, what is Softbank going to do with their new toy? They indirectly have the whole mobile handset market (amongst numerous other things) by the balls, but the question is, do they squeeze?

 

Very likely, but currently those markets are also price sensitive so it will be interesting to see. However 'Son has said he is focused on IOT, which is extremely broad. Many industries like automotive, government, industrial are long-term growers not short term showers (LOL) but they are dominated by low-end/small cores, not multiple Cortex-A 64-bit + DSPs + Cellular. Only cars outstrip phones in "number of ARM IPs per item" and within 10 years will be multiple times with dozens of sensors and sub-systems, but people buy cars less frequently than phones. It's a ****-ton of money though and I can't see how they'll recoup it on licensing alone.

SoftBank may also push Alibaba to buy/make its own ARM server chips, taking away from one of Intel's Super 7. That'll be a big blow to Int and a foot in the door for ARM server.

Taiwanese are pretty sure they are Taiwanese Don't take the Chinese-paid-for media and those scared of political backlash. Ask the people.

SoftBank might be "taking it away" but ARM is very international and they aren't going to relocate it to Japan. They do want to grow British employees which is the best outcome, and my next career move in 3-5 years. Yay

Pushed* Intel out. Intel are gone. They are only continuing connectivity to align with IOT.

 

This business was sold off as soon as it listed publically. I bought into it a few years ago and nobody asked what my nationality was at the time. As it is the new buyers are expecting to double the UK based jobs and increase overall investment which sounds good.