ARM’s business model, up to now, is to license chip designs and
patents to all comers who want to make their own chips. This has made
the ARM architecture the most successful in human history.
But the company has been making some moves that are unnerving its
licensees, lately. And here’s another one: it now wants to make its
own hardware. Won’t that put it in direct competition with those
licensees? Can you say “conflict of interest”?
<https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/arm-hires-amazons-ai-chip-developer-to-help-create-its-own-processors-rami-sinno-returns-to-the-company-boasts-trainium-and-inferentia-on-resume>
It wouldn’t be outside historical industry norms. Intel made their own 8086s but also licensed them to around 10 other manufacturers ...
From a customer point of view: it’s not _that_ hard to change CPU architecture.
Richard Kettlewell wrote:
From a customer point of view: it’s not _that_ hard to change CPU
architecture.
Are you talking embedded?
Because in general-purpose computing, the proprietary vendors anyway (Microsoft being the obvious example) have a great deal of trouble
supporting more than one platform.
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
Because in general-purpose computing, the proprietary vendors
anyway (Microsoft being the obvious example) have a great deal of
trouble supporting more than one platform.
Apple have changed architecture three times now ...
... HP and Sun at least twice each.
Microsoft support two architectures at present and have supported
more in the past.
Richard Kettlewell wrote:
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
Because in general-purpose computing, the proprietary vendors
anyway (Microsoft being the obvious example) have a great deal of
trouble supporting more than one platform.
Apple have changed architecture three times now ...
But never more than main one at a time -- not for longer than
absolutely needed to make the transition.
... HP and Sun at least twice each.
All the old HP minis and RISC architectures have gone. Itanium has
gone. HP only does x86 now. And Sun has gone.
Microsoft support two architectures at present and have supported
more in the past.
Windows-on-ARM is struggling. And Windows NT on non-x86 architectures
never lasted long. Fun fact: even on x86, which is now 64-bit, Windows
is still a 32-bit architecture at heart.
You see what I mean, don’t you?
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 08:47:39 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
It wouldn’t be outside historical industry norms. Intel made their own 8086s but also licensed them to around 10 other manufacturers ...
But Intel was a chip manufacturer from the get-go. ARM Ltd was set up precisely as a company that made designs (and got patents on them) for licensing to others, not as one that made its own chips. That way other companies paying it money for those licences could feel confident they
were all competing fairly, on a level field with an honest broker.
But if ARM makes its own chips, now it is competing with its own
customers. Can you say “conflict of interest”?
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
Richard Kettlewell wrote:
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
Because in general-purpose computing, the proprietary vendors anyway
(Microsoft being the obvious example) have a great deal of trouble
supporting more than one platform.
Apple have changed architecture three times now ...
But never more than main one at a time -- not for longer than
absolutely needed to make the transition.
So what?
All the old HP minis and RISC architectures have gone. Itanium has
gone. HP only does x86 now. And Sun has gone.
Again, so what?
Windows-on-ARM is struggling. And Windows NT on non-x86 architectures
never lasted long. Fun fact: even on x86, which is now 64-bit, Windows
is still a 32-bit architecture at heart.
You see what I mean, don’t you?
You’re obviously not addressing the claim I actually made ...
Microsoft sold Windows to PC manufacturers, until they got fed up
that the PC manufacturers weren't making PCs that made good use of
their OS. So they released the Surface line. Microsoft make a decent
income from that ...
... but PC manufacturers did not go bankrupt - in fact they
incorporated many of the features from the Surface to make their
products more attractive to customers ...
Apple have changed architecture three times now, HP and Sun at least
twice each. Microsoft support two architectures at present and have >supported more in the past.
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Apple have changed architecture three times now, HP and Sun at least
twice each. Microsoft support two architectures at present and have >supported more in the past.
In the case of HP and Sun, customers often used the architecture change as
a reason to move to a competing product. If we have to recompile the code anyway, we might as well recompile it for a faster machine from a different company.
Microsoft has over the years tried very hard to promote Windows on a variety of architectures from Alpha to ARM and in spite of spending a lot of money they have never really been able to get customers off of the x86.
Apple is weird... Apple is selling the UI more than anything else, and they have actually changed architectures four times.... 68k->ppc->x86->m4 but
each time they have made sure they had backwards compatibility for a few versions of the code on the old architecture. People want Apple because
of the UI and they will put up with a lot of grief to have it.
--scott
... decent interoperability within its own ecosystem.
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 15:07:19 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
... decent interoperability within its own ecosystem.
An oxymoron, if ever there was one ...
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 15:07:19 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
... decent interoperability within its own ecosystem.
An oxymoron, if ever there was one ...
How else would you describe the family of iDevices that all talk to each other with ease straight from the box? [rhet.]
On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:34:54 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 15:07:19 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
... decent interoperability within its own ecosystem.
An oxymoron, if ever there was one ...
How else would you describe the family of iDevices that all
talk to each other with ease straight from the box? [rhet.]
Words like "proprietary", "closed system" and "walled garden"
come to mind ... [fact.]
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