Apple not interested in takeover of Arm Holdings, report claims [u]

Apple was approached to discuss a potential takeover of semiconductor designer Arm Holdings, but does not plan to pursue a bid for the company, according to a new report.

SoftBank, the Japanese company that owns Arm Holdings, is reportedly considering alternative options for the chip architecture designer. That could include either an initial public offering, or some type of full or partial sale, per a report from earlier in July.

According to Bloomberg, Apple and Softbank were in preliminary talks for a potential sale, but Apple decided not to chase the offer. Sources familiar with the matter said Arm's licensing operation would be a poor fit with the tech giant's current business structure. Further, an Apple takeover would likely raise red flags considering Arm is a licensee to multiple industry rivals.

Nvidia, which mostly produces graphics cards for the gaming and professional market, has reportedly showed interest in Arm. If those discussions break down, SoftBank could also decide to pursue a public listing, sources familiar with the matter said.

A deal for Arm Holdings could become the largest chip industry acquisition to date. Arm designs and licenses the ARM chip architecture that Apple uses in its A-series system-on-chips (SoCs).

Any deal for Arm is likely to spark antitrust scrutiny, however. Companies looking to buy the firm will likely need to prove that it will continue to provide equal access to the ARM instruction set. Those concerns, according to Bloomberg are what resulted in SoftBank, a neutral company, acquiring Arm the last time it went up for sale.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect additional information regarding Apple's role in the ongoing process.

43 Comments

civa 78 comments · 9 Years

About 4 years ago

Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.

Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.

Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.

A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple

bloggerblog 2513 comments · 16 Years

The way I understood it is that Apple license the instruction set and not the chip architecture. It is why Apple calls their chips Apple Silicon and not Apple Arm.

flydog 1140 comments · 14 Years

civa said:

Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple

You wouldn't have thought that if you actually knew what ARM does.

Xed 2871 comments · 4 Years

civa said:

Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple

This doesn't affect Apple Silicon. They'll still use their licensed ISA to make chips that no one else can keep up with. It doesn't matter who "owns" ARM Holdings.

linuxplatform 124 comments · 5 Years

civa said:

Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple

OK. This is exactly where it is going. No one cares about Apple using its own chips for its own computers ... but people who use Apple computers. (And even then a tiny subset of people who use Apple computers. Most Apple computer users see their Macs as locked boxes and know/care less about their internals than Windows/Linux users. The same for iPhone/iPad owners versus Android device owners. They buy Apple products because they "just work" - and when they don't they just take advantage of Apple's legendary support - and do not have to think about the underlying technology.)

Seriously, who you think regards themselves as being in competition with Apple in the PC market? Nvidia? In what way? They don't manufacture PCs. They don't manufacture PC CPUs. And Apple doesn't even buy their GPUs for the vast majority of their products. So what on earth would Nvidia gain by denying Apple licenses for ARM and forcing Apple to continue using Intel? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

How about someone who actually makes PCs then? Dell. Dell buys ARM, keeps Apple from making ARM Macs. Guess what? Apple still keeps making Intel Macs. Apple's market share remains the same. And Dell keeps getting hammered by Lenovo. And Dell - who is already financially struggling from their failed VMWare purchase that they are going to have to write down billions from - will also have another worthless acquisition in ARM. Lenovo? More of the same. Virtually no one on this planet who would even think of buying a Mac would buy a Lenovo because they don't have the brand name that IBM once did. HP? Acer? Asus? Yeah, no. There aren't very many people who would say "will I buy a MacBook Pro or will I buy an Acer Predator?" either. (By "very many" I mean absolutely none.)