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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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

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

Price aside: this person wants Apple because it is quality kit with
decent interoperability within its own ecosystem. It just works.
--
^�^. Sn!pe, PTB, FIBS My pet rock Gordon just is.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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 ...
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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.]
--
^�^. Sn!pe, PTB, FIBS My pet rock Gordon just is.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

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

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.]

Why is that a problem; is it just a case of "not invented here"?
--
^�^. Sn!pe, PTB, FIBS My pet rock Gordon just is.
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