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They might as well buy AMD while they're at it ( http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AMD ).
Acquiring ARM only for the chance at an end-to-end vertically integrated design seems quite expensive, albeit not beyond the "insanely great" motivations of Mr. Jobs.
It's true that ARM has a compelling and growing market share at the lower end, but continuing the licensing business seems un-Apple-like; at the same time, shutting that business down would only hurt competitors a little - it would mainly serve to make the other CPU makers rush in and try to capture the resulting power vacuum.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
and they'd still have cash left over to pick up NVIDIA too.
It might make more sense to skip AMD and just get NVIDIA. It would put them in an interesting position with Intel and Tegra seems like some hot tech these days (at least based on the headlines I skim it does).
But it is funny to speculate as a laymen - I mean what if Google bought AMD instead? That would give them a crazy position to experiment with hardware and keep a check on Apple - after all, Google means serious business with the Nexus one and the mythical tablet. And we all know Google likes to experiment with 3D stuff in browsers and such. Again, I am just blithering- with Google's purchase of AMD (+ATI), they might just have crazy nice open-source 3D tools, maybe even a cloud platform for map-reduce rendering work (take that Pixar - yet another Steve Jobs production).
But on the other hand, Microsoft is the one who could benefit the most from buying AMD. For one thing, MSFT gets ATI for Xbox 360, a platform that MSFT has well executed. And now, Microsoft even make their own chips from win 7 mobile phones to consoles. To really keep Apple's market cap away from them, MSFT panics and makes their own hardware and opens up retail stores :-P
This would scream antitrust. ARM chips represent something like 90% of all CPUs in existence; billions of cores manufactures every year by different fabs. I'm not sure it would be allowed to go through.
2) Antitrust problems generally happen when you coerce a company into something using your monopoly power - not when you close down a business (if you believe the bit about them closing ARM down - which I don't). If Apple tried to force ARM licencees to forbid the use of Android (or Flash! :)) on the chips, then maybe there would be a concern (abuse of market power etc).
They might as well buy AMD while they're at it ( http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AMD ).
I'm with the camp that doesn't see an obvious strategic move here. Acquiring ARM only for the chance at an end-to-end vertically integrated design seems quite expensive, albeit not beyond the "insanely great" motivations of Mr. Jobs. It's true that ARM has a compelling and growing market share at the lower end, but continuing the licensing business seems un-Apple-like; at the same time, shutting that business down wo…
Not beyond? I'd take that a step further and say that end-to-end vertically integrated design is very much a Steve Jobs sort of thing to attempt. He has said he thinks of Apple as a software company and, attributing it to Alan Kay, that "People that love software want to build their own hardware." That said, I'm not sure this would require total ownership of ARM -- just sufficiently large stake in it to exert some direction on its future development (sort of like sharing PowerPC with IBM and Motorola).
They might as well buy AMD while they're at it ( http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AMD ).
they have 40+ billion in cash. theyre saving it up for something huge (my own beliefs and from what theyve hinted at). Nvidia or AMD/ATI could be it.
But I wish they would buy Foxconn, so that they can control manufacturing too!