So no one can buy it?....weird situation indeed.

Airbud:

So no one can buy it?....weird situation indeed.

Well, i think i have some spare change lying around...

Airbud:

So no one can buy it?....weird situation indeed.

It's probably going to be a public offering. That means shares will be up for grabs, for those with money and expediency. nVidia might still be able to buy some shares and get a saying in the company. But if other companies also buy shares, it might make the decisions inside ARM a bit more democratic.

Horus-Anhur:

It's probably going to be a public offering. That means shares will be up for grabs, for those with money and expediency. nVidia might still be able to buy some shares and get a saying in the company. But if other companies also buy shares, it might make the decisions inside ARM a bit more democratic.

And we know what happens when share holders end up a main stay of a company. It's profits over innovation. I'm not so sure this is a good move at all. Only time will tell.

EETimes - Nvidia Abandons Arm Deal, Segars Steps Aside for IPO

Either way, new CEO Haas will oversee preparations for Arm’s IPO. Haas previously served as president of Arm’s IP products group. Under Haas, the Arm unit increased investment in a large software developer ecosystem as well as products aimed at growth markets such as infrastructure and automotive. Those investments attracted new ecosystem entrants, including Alibaba, Ampere, Amazon Web Services, Bosch, Denso, Intel’s Mobileye unit and Telechips. Arm said this week it is on track to achieve record royalty revenue, licensing revenue and profits during its current fiscal year. Haas previously held positions in engineering management and sales with Nvidia, Scintera Networks and Tensilica. He also serves as a non-executive director at Mythic and Computacenter. ... Under terms of their agreement, SoftBank will retain the $1.25 billion prepaid by Nvidia when the acquisition was proposed. That sum will be recorded as profit during the fourth quarter. Nvidia will retain its 20-year Arm license.

ruthan:

I wonder which buyer would be good enough i really hope that it would be evil as Apple, Sony or MS, which would completely close it.. Nvidia would better that other buyers.

Seriously asking right now, why Sony and MS are considered 'evil'?

tunejunky:

chances are it will be acquired by patent pimps (SPAC -special purpose acquisition company) where a shell company raises cash to buy a company listed on an Exchange without (due formality) process and become listed as a result. and has access to all IP of the listed company. right now ARM is radioactively "hot" for traditional buyers.

... until they sell it sometime down the road which brings up the same issues again. After all, I don't think Softbank's plan to sell is suddenly not on the table any more just because one interested buyer did not jump through all the hoops. And even it's it gets bought via SPAC, nobody says the buyer will hold on to it for long if it's somebody not from the business, talking about a few years here. But we shall wait and see what happens...

Ivrogne:

Seriously asking right now, why Sony and MS are considered 'evil'?

I don't know about Sony, but Microsoft managed to make the once largest mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, exit the cell phone market entirely. Of course it was also Nokia's own fault for believing MS's (false) promises, but nevertheless, MS and Microsoft's mole Stephen Elop can be credited for Nokia becoming a mere shadow of its former shelf. If Nokia had started making Android phones instead of Windows phones, it would most likely still be one of the largest phone makers today. Probably not the largest or even second largest, but one of the big ones. Now neither Nokia nor MS makes phones. Nokia is now a small company of no international renown, yet MS is bigger than ever. So, one could say Nokia was a gullible fool that made a deal with the devil (MS). The devil always wins in those deals.

Kaarme:

I don't know about Sony, but Microsoft managed to make the once largest mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, exit the cell phone market entirely. Of course it was also Nokia's own fault for believing MS's (false) promises, but nevertheless, MS and Microsoft's mole Stephen Elop can be credited for Nokia becoming a mere shadow of its former shelf. If Nokia had started making Android phones instead of Windows phones, it would most likely still be one of the largest phone makers today. Probably not the largest or even second largest, but one of the big ones. Now neither Nokia nor MS makes phones. Nokia is now a small company of no international renown, yet MS is bigger than ever. So, one could say Nokia was a gullible fool that made a deal with the devil (MS). The devil always wins in those deals.

Oh, you're right, Windows phone. Now I need the answer for Sony.

Ivrogne:

Oh, you're right, Windows phone. Now I need the answer for Sony.

Sony were a lot like Apple back in the day - expensive, innovative, but very closed - e.g. betamax not vhs, minidisk not portable-cd, memory stick not sdcard. I suspect they are only more open now because they have no choice.

Stormyandcold:

$1.25billion wasted. I'd sue tbh and if Nvidia doesn't sue, then, if there is a 3rd party purchase of ARM later on I'd put a stop to that transaction as well.

If you were from USA, would you let the computer of your defence to be build by north korean company? It's almost the same in here with UK, it's not a money problem, the main problem is the nationality of the company. The good point is the "independence" resulting from this action... at least for some time.

Horus-Anhur:

That's why AMD, Cyrix and Via also had licenses for X86. But after IBM lost the X86 control of the market, Intel stopped giving their X86 CPU design to these companies. So AMD, Via and Cyrix had to design and manufacture their own X86 CPUs.

You are totaly right exept for AMD as it was foundry for intel too at this time, and so were like a real partner, when Via and Cyrix only have a X86 licence, so there were really 100% compatible while Via and Cyrix sometime fail. the 1st CPU with AMD X86 is the K5 (with maybe "reverse engeneering" from intel lol) *edit: some mistyping corrected*

cyrix never had an x86 license until via aquired them, they produced x86 clones (most of them superior to the original) through reverse engineering which led to multiple lawsuits that ended up in cyrix's favor.

rl66:

You are totaly right exept for AMD as it was founder for intel too at this time, and so were like a real partner, when Via and Cyrix only have a X86 licence, so there were really 100% compatible while Via and Cyrix sometime fail. the 1st CPU with AMD X86 is the K5 (with maybe "reverse engeneering" from intel lol)

I think you mean foundries. IBM didn't want to rely solely on Intel's foundries, so they demanded Intel to license X86 production to other suppliers. AMD started as a foundrie, producing chips. Not so much designing them. Only when Intel refused to share it's CPU´s designs, did AMD have to become an X86 chip designer.

Horus-Anhur:

Intel created the X86 ISA. The government never intruded in this monopoly, because of this. The only entity that prevented Intel from complete domination of the X86 market was IBM, that demanded multiple suppliers of CPUs. That's why AMD, Cyrix and Via also had licenses for X86. But after IBM lost the X86 control of the market, Intel stopped giving their X86 CPU design to these companies. So AMD, Via and Cyrix had to design and manufacture their own X86 CPUs. ARM on the other hand was always an ISA open for licensing. So having one single company with control of ARM would be bad. It was bad enough as it was when Intel dominated the CPU market. No need to repeat the same thing if we can help it.

I know this history, but important in effect on end user and x86 is simply duopoly at best, when AMD is on good wave and government should fix this 30 years ago.. Its already own by single company - Softbank is also single company, this is how world is working, only this company has more user friendly market model. Only other way how to make it maybe "better", would be make it so government science developing program, international if possible to produce free designs, but we all know how effective such projects usually are, yeah there are exceptions..

Ivrogne:

Seriously asking right now, why Sony and MS are considered 'evil'?

When last time made Sony something some open API or design to benefit whole community? Im not fanatical Linux user which need to have open everything, but Sony really care only about itself. So why MS is bad too, they have at least some open APIs? Yeah they are a bit better, but now too much profit oriented, in lots of ways there are dog in the manger.. and blocking evolution. Just to name few things, im not saying most important - DirectX is still closed source Windows onlz, secret deal with Qualcomm for 5 years Windows ARM exclusivity, not make Windows for ARM and PowerPC for lots of years, ditch Windows gaming for long time, because of Xbox - with such even things like Games for Windows clients, not release Dos or Win 3,11 / 9x source code for free to community to use it for retro gaming.

ruthan:

I know this history, but important in effect on end user and x86 is simply duopoly at best, when AMD is on good wave and government should fix this 30 years ago.. Its already own by single company - Softbank is also single company, this is how world is working, only this company has more user friendly market model. Only other way how to make it maybe "better", would be make it so government science developing program, international if possible to produce free designs, but we all know how effective such projects usually are, yeah there are exceptions..

ARM doesn't manufacture it's chips to compete with other companies. They just license the design and/or the ISA. This means they are not like Intel, in a monopoly.

Horus-Anhur:

I think you mean foundries. IBM didn't want to rely solely on Intel's foundries, so they demanded Intel to license X86 production to other suppliers. AMD started as a foundrie, producing chips. Not so much designing them. Only when Intel refused to share it's CPU´s designs, did AMD have to become an X86 chip designer.

yes my bad corrected. But AMD was already doing own CPU before Intel and X86

Horus-Anhur:

It's probably going to be a public offering. That means shares will be up for grabs, for those with money and expediency. nVidia might still be able to buy some shares and get a saying in the company. But if other companies also buy shares, it might make the decisions inside ARM a bit more democratic.

I think a public offering would be the end of ARM.

AuerX:

I think a public offering would be the end of ARM.

As long as it's not bought up by bunch of equity firms...

Horus-Anhur:

As long as it's not bought up by bunch of equity firms...

Like Softbank? 😀 edit: What if that's what regulators actually would prefer? Instead of creating a monopoly with selling to a company inside the business, they might try to keep it neutral, available to all, when trying to enforce a sell into neutral hands.