Wednesday, 7 September 2016
ARM Holdings is little known out of the tech and financial world – however, the UK-based company is known well enough by Japanese’s SoftBank Group for them to pay $32 billion to acquire the firm – an acquisition that is now complete.
SoftBank Group seems very excited for the future in their press release. The
SoftBank Group is into more than mobile wireless communication, and ARM is the
leading semiconductor-based architecture for the digital world – however,
working together in the future they can accomplish great things as 5G comes
into play, as well as the Internet-of-Things (IoT), continues to grow.
If
SoftBank sounds familiar to you, it may because back in 2013 they also
purchased a 72-percent stake in US-based Sprint. That relationship has been a
rocky one due to its inability to compete with T-Mobile. Sprint is still hoping
to build up their infrastructure, along with incentives and promos encouraging
new customers to join the carrier. ARM does not actually produce any chips –
they design and license their technology to the likes of Qualcomm, Samsung,
MediaTek, and more. ARM-based chips are primarily used in smartphones and
tablets but are also used in robotics, and IoT products. While Intel used to
dominate the laptop market, ARM-based chips are used in the Chromebook laptops,
which are starting to grow in popularity.
The
SoftBank Group has made it clear that ARM will operate independently, only work
together to have a far better future. They explained that every day all their
ARM partners ship more than 40 million ARM-based chips around the world.
SoftBank, itself, provides mobile and fixed-line connectivity to over 100
million people and devices in both the US and Japan. SoftBank believes that
working together ARM will be able to design new architecture at a faster rate
to help keep up with the increasing demands of mobile wireless technology. The
future is moving fast, and the SoftBank Group plans to be a part of that
revolution – what better partner to take on than ARM. Both companies are
expected to be a part of robotics, supercomputers, 5G networks, and the IoT,
which is rapidly becoming a multi-billion dollar business. Who wouldn’t want a
smart home – lights go on and off, lock or unlock your door, monitor you home
for burglars or your own kids, adjust the thermostat, see what is in your
refrigerator while at the store – these products and more are coming soon. With
the purchase of ARM, SoftBank just helped to ensure that they will be a part of
the future..
