From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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>
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

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>

Something similar was reported in February.

It wouldn’t be outside historical industry norms. Intel made their own
8086s but also licensed them to around 10 other manufacturers; the
Intel/AMD thing today is similar although there may be licensing going
on in both directions there.

From a customer point of view: it’s not _that_ hard to change CPU architecture. We’ve migrated between different CPU architectures a
couple of times in our product history, we could do it again if it was
really necessary (though don’t know of any reason to think an Arm entry
into manufacturing would force us in particular to do so).
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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”?

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.

The Open Source world certainly can manage it quite successfully. That’s
how it could be the first to embrace RISC-V.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

Richard Kettlewell wrote:

From a customer point of view: it’s not _that_ hard to change CPU
architecture.

Are you talking embedded?

Yes.

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.
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 08:41:00 +0100, 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?
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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? The claim I made was about an architecture migration, not about supporting multiple architectures concurrently.

... 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.

Again, so what?

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?

You’re obviously not addressing the claim I actually made, so I’m going back to assuming you’re not arguing in good faith.
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

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”?

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 (in the face of competition from in particular Apple). Everybody won.

Theo
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:10:07 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

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?

Because I said they “have a great deal of trouble supporting more than one platform”.

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?

Because I said they “have a great deal of trouble supporting more than one platform”.

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 ...

You were trying to refute what I said, which was they “have a great deal
of trouble supporting more than one platform”.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 22 Aug 2025 19:12:17 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:

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 ...

Somehow I doubt that. Given their so-so reviews, I would suspect they
are a loss-making venture -- a corporate vanity project, no more.

... 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 ...

Actually, Surface is an example to PC vendors of how *not* to make a
successful product.
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