
SoftBank is buying ARM for $32B - amaks
http://www.recode.net/2016/7/17/12210564/softbank-arm-holdings-deal
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petewailes
Purely as a member of the UK tech community, this comes as worrying news. We
don't have that many world class technology players, at this sorry of level.

As someone who likes ARM though, I suspect this is a fairly good thing.
SoftBank have bought other entities of late in similar spaces that are doing
well.

Examples that I'm thinking of would be BetFair, Sprint Corporation, Upstream
and Supercell. They've a history of good investment and ownership, and a
fairly hands-off approach to managing the companies they own/have heavy
investment in.

I'm not thrilled at ARM being owned now, but it's a good price and SoftBank
are about as good as they'd be likely to get.

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scholia
It's an initial defeat for the new prime minister, who previously complained
about the vast number of major UK companies and utilities being taken over by
foreigners. As we know from experience, this usually leads to profits and UK
jobs moving overseas as well....

If May is unable or unwilling to stop the ARM takeover, which seems to be the
case, then many more will follow. Especially as the declining value of the
post-Brexit pound (down 30% against the Yen in the past year), makes UK
companies cheaper.

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peterclary
There's still time for other bidders. I'm sure that Apple has at least
considered it in the past, and may be reconsidering it now.

~~~
scholia
Apple was instrumental in splitting ARM from Acorn and, I seem to recall,
owned 40% of it at launch. (It used an ARM chip in the Newton.) However, Apple
owning ARM might well encourage other companies to use Intel or other
chips....

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chx
Didn't Intel cancel chips for mobile phones this spring after the rather
spectacular failure of Atom gaining any measurable marketshare? ARM has an
architecture monopoly.

~~~
scholia
Yes, it cancelled the Broxton and SoFIA SoCs, which were targeted at mobile
phones, presumably because these are low-margin businesses where Intel wasn't
making any money. However, it's still in the Atom business, so there's nothing
to stop it from doing mobile SoCs in the future.

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/10288/intel-broxton-sofia-
smar...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10288/intel-broxton-sofia-smartphone-
socs-cancelled)

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jsingleton
I wonder how much the sorry state of sterling helped this?

~~~
tomwalker
It was 7% more expensive for them:

[https://twitter.com/jamestitcomb/status/754966707769315333](https://twitter.com/jamestitcomb/status/754966707769315333)

~~~
jsingleton
OK, looks like since the Pound tanked against the Yen last month ARM's share
price has risen to more than counteract that. Thanks.

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lazylizard
what does softbank bring to the table? how is arm helped by becoming part of
softbank?

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ac29
Your asking the wrong question. The right question is how does ARM help
SoftBank?

The answer: SoftBank is making a major play into the growing IoT market and
betting that ARM will greatly increase their revenues when chip volumes go up.

