ARM: The Unheralded Monopoly?

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/The+unheralded+monopoly/2010-1006_3-5262581.html' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/The+unheralded+..._3-5262581.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Imagine a company that controls more than 80 percent of its segment of the cell phone market and has 40 percent of the digital camera market. Now it wants to expand its reach in consumer electronics. Many would consider it predatory--even a monopolist. Somehow, though, Cambridge, England-based ARM just doesn't give people the willies the same way behemoths like Microsoft or Intel do. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone spouting "ARM is evil! EVIL!!!" in a chat room."</i><br /><br />The ARM instruction set architecture has gained dominance -- there's a number of vendors making large number of ARM chips (in other words, licensing their base technology), and they're being used in an increasingly large number of devices. I'm not sure that the analogy to Microsoft or Intel holds water, but it's still interesting and thought-provoking reading.

[Jonathan1]

Maybe its because ARM doesn't play craptastic, borderline ethical games like Microsoft and Intel does. Somewhere along the line Monopoly became a dirty word. It isn’t. Its what you DO what that monopoly is what makes it a dirty word or not. Now if ARM were to play the same games MS does when dealing with its competitors then you would start having a backlash. Until then. *shrugs* They make a good instruction set until their products start sliding in quality there isn’t anything to complain about.

[powder2000]

Interistingly enough, both my devices use non-arm processors. I have a thing for legacy devices :lol:

[jimski]

Maybe it's because ARM just "works". People don't fear or complain about things that just do what they were intended to do.

That's why I have a SkyPager (not much competition in this market). It just works anywhere/everywhere in North America, even up to about 10,000 feet.

[AndrewLubinus89]

This is like the second slashdot story I have seen here this week. Strange....

[jonathanchoo]

This is because most consumers does not know what processor resides inside their mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices. ARM does not manufacture their own processors, they just design them, and then license out to Intel, Ti, Sony, Samsung etc to build them. When Intel XScale was released, many people did not know that it was an ARM just because the ARM name was dropped. ARM does not show off their name. When Microsoft license the PocketPC OS, they demand that every OEM put a big Pocket PC name on the front and now - an ugly certificate on the back. ARM does not do that. I never saw a 'ARM Inside' logo in my whole life. Manufacturer's keep buying ARM chips because its the best mobile processor there is and not because of the brand - something Microsoft and Intel usually put emphasis on in marketing a new product.

[karlth]

ARM is if I remember correctly from the same roots as Acorn Computers, the designers of the Archimedes, BBC and Electron computers.

Didn't a major hardware company buy a large share in ARM some years ago? Apple or Intel? :?:

[Kacey Green]

This is like the second slashdot story I have seen here this week. Strange....
/. isn't the only news source out there and they are agregators like most of us. He was quoting CNet's News.com which actually is an original news source.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Manufacturer's keep buying ARM chips because its the best mobile processor there is and not because of the brand.

And that's why folks like ARM. They are probably the best at what they do, keep a low profile and come across as 'likable'. The fact that they are British can only help of course. :wink:

[bjornkeizers]

Maybe it's because ARM just "works". People don't fear or complain about things that just do what they were intended to do.


That about sums it up I expect.

To me, ARM is just like USB or CD-ROM: yes, it's technically a 'monopoly' but there are no negative effects. USB works, every PC comes with a few ports, it's widely supported, easy to use... Just like ARM. See, if you treat your customers right - or at least, don't shaft them like Microsoft - your customers will be good to you too. I've never heard someone say anything negative about arm products or the company itself.

[Chucky]

If there was serious competition that was a threat to ARM I expect we would see exactly the same behaviour as Microsoft or Intel or any other company whos profit drenched monopoly is threatened.

[Jason Lee]

I see ARM as more of a standard than a monopoly.

[jonathanchoo]

If there was serious competition that was a threat to ARM I expect we would see exactly the same behaviour as Microsoft or Intel or any other company whos profit drenched monopoly is threatened.

I doubt so. British company hardly react that way. When Psion was threatened did they try to muscle out Palm or Microsoft - no. They just went on with their business improving their core products and expanding into other markets. The worst that can happen would be ARM is taken over by a larger company (I hope not Intel) like most of the British car marque but left to operate independantly of the parent company.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I see ARM as more of a standard than a monopoly.

Is ARM an open standard? Don't folks like Samsung, Intel etc. have to licence to use the ARM instruction set?

[arnage2]

ya, i think so. they license the ARM 9 standard.

[Richie Rich]

When NEC went with the upgraded ARM processor, the PXA255 in their Mobilepro 900C, it opened up a world of quality Jornada 720 compatible software that I can immediately use with my Windows CE.NET 4.2 device.

To date I have over 150 good applications that work fine. If Mobilepro would have stuck with MIPS or some other cpu...I'd be hurting for sure.


Rich Hawley
WWW.Diverseinfo.com
NEC Mobilepro 900C Compatibility Site :D

[corrosive]

ARM is if I remember correctly from the same roots as Acorn Computers, the designers of the Archimedes, BBC and Electron computers.

Didn't a major hardware company buy a large share in ARM some years ago? Apple or Intel? :?:

AFAIK, both - Apple certainly had a lot to do with ARM early on through the Newton project, and up until recently owned a lot of ARM shares. I know Intel ended up with the StrongARM stuff from DEC, but not sure if they invested in ARM.

[Jonathon Watkins]

When NEC went with the upgraded ARM processor, the PXA255 in their Mobilepro 900C, it opened up a world of quality Jornada 720 compatible software that I can immediately use with my Windows CE.NET 4.2 device.

Welcome Richie. Good to have you aboard. 8) Be sure to check out the new PPCT "Windows CE .Net Devices" Forum (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=56) which has just been created as a resource/meeting area for users like yourself. I know there's not much traffic at the moment, but give it time to grow. :wink:

It's is nice when there is a processor standard. I'm more than happy that ARM is the X86 of the mobile world. No-one wants to go back to the world of multiple compiled programs for different processors. :!:

[epdm]

It seems that everybody agrees that ARM's position is seen as being "a good thing". Nice. At least one European success story ;-)

To karlth: Yes it was Acorn Computers ltd. who "invented" the ARM cpu. Then it was called "Acorn Risc Machines", later on Apple and VLSI invested in ARM-designs which led to a seperate company away from Acorn Computers Ltd. into ARM Ltd. The ARM derivate was changed into Advanced Risc Machines. Apple pioneered with ARM cpu's in their now defunkt Newton PDA. While Acorn kept using the designs they originally invented upto ARM3. Later on they started using ARM600 and ARM700 cpus in their Risc PC project. Another time later Digital Equipment Corporation, known for their extremely fast Alpha RISC processors, co-operated with ARM Ltd. to create a high performance ARM-core to be known as the StrongARM. Also to be used in the Acorn Risc PC desktop computer. AFAIK Acorn Computers Ltd. is gone but their prime desktop systems are still being manufactored together with Acorn's original designed OS, nicely called Risc OS, albeit in a further advanced form today. In fact these "Risc OS"-machines are still today the only desktop personal computers whom uses ARM-cpu's as their main cpu.

If anybody wants to know more about those strange desktop machines just google for it. I'm sure you'll find enough info.

Much later DEC went bancrupt and Intel bought some of it's legacy (mostly the ARM designs and licenses) while the Alpha went to (I believe Samsung Semicondutors). That's roughly how Intel got hold of ARM-technology.

The prime reason why ARM Ltd. is the good guy is indeed because they're not as intruisive as Microsoft or Intel. So they let their licensees build the chips and earn (a lot of) money from them (they pay some licence fee back to ARM). So in essence everybody wins with ARM's designs while in the case of US-monopolistic only the prime proprietary holder earns big money.

Second reason is that ARM cpus are very good at what they are supposed to do unlike Intel cpu's which are very inefficient. Offcourse there are others even US companies make good cpus (transmeta is one) which are performance/power efficient but again these are the alternative smaller bunch. The outcats, underdogs or whatever you'd call them.

Anyway. I have the feeling that Mr. Michael Kanellos doesn't like ARM's position. And there's no explanation as to why he doesn't like it. Perhaps he'd rather have Intel in that position? With Microsoft on top of that...

Regards

[epdm]

When NEC went with the upgraded ARM processor, the PXA255 in their Mobilepro 900C, it opened up a world of quality Jornada 720 compatible software that I can immediately use with my Windows CE.NET 4.2 device.

To date I have over 150 good applications that work fine. If Mobilepro would have stuck with MIPS or some other cpu...I'd be hurting for sure.


Rich Hawley


That's not to be said. Look at Sony. They used MIPS cpu's (or a derivate of it) in their playstation. And that has a whole lot of good software titles.

I think it's how you handle the technology at your disposal. In the case of PPC it was Microsoft who tipped the balance towards ARM cpu's. Probably because the others where involved in other stuff instead of dedicating themself towards PPC. Unlike Intel who firmly stated to enhance the StrongARM for Pocket PC's. Just look around most cpu's now into PPC's are 400 or 300 Mhz XScales PXA2XX-series which was soley designed with PPC-like devices in mind.

It could have been different. Though we'll never find out (perhaps luckily).

[Talon]

There are some nice little twists to the ARM story. This is going from memory but I don't think I've got any key bits wrong...

As has previously been mentioned, they were origionaly Acorn computers. They had a range of 6502 based systems on sale in the UK and were looking at what to do next.
Their first choice was to license the 80286 design from Intel and make a couple of minor changes. Intel said no, they buy the chip as it was or not at all.
So Acorn went off and with a team of 7 engineers designed the first ARM RISC CPU in the space of a year including all the support circuitry needed to make it into a usable computer. It was origionaly designed to give good (for the day) desktop performance, the fact that it ended up being low power was purely an added bonus.

The Acorn ARM based computers (the Archimedes series) went the way of all non-intel/MS based PC's but the CPU group was spun off as a seperate company that became one of the first fabless chip vendors.

The irony is that Intel now license the ARM core (first via DEC and the StrongARM and now the Xscale range) which only exists because they refused to license the 286 design.