> Never going to happen unless regulators do something about Qualcomm's monopoly. Apple is pretty much the only company with the resources to fight them, yet they still can't get away from Qualcomm parts even in their latest iPhones.
The regulators would be hard-pressed as they have nothing to regulate. Qualcomm doesn't have a monopoly on the ARM ISA. Samsung, Mediatek, Fujitsu, Intel, Nvidia, AMD, etc. all have licenses. Even Microsoft and Google have designed their own ARM processors.
Qualcomm has nothing to do with ARM aside from being a licensee itself. Apple's contentions with Qualcomm center on, inter alia Qualcomm's already awarded patents on cellular modems and the licensing fees it charges Apple.
> If it wasn't for Qualcomm, I think powerful ARM workstations would've arrived much, much sooner (among other innovations). But of course, monopolies are an enemy of innovation.
Intel already tried with StrongARM/XScale to little noteworthy success. Nvidia has achieved limited success with Tegra, but mainly in automotive dashboards and their Shield boxes. All of this is the free market at work. Qualcomm isn't necessary for ARM laptops to fail and his historically had little to do with it.