[hakfoo]

ARM-the-architecture is wildly successful. ARM-the-company is not.

To me, that says the problem is that ARM-the-company didn't have the right business plan.

However, to say I'm skeptical of this alternative business plan is an understatement. As was said everywhere else, the ability to build a pick-and-mix SoC is what got ARM-the-platform into the niches where it's strongest today.

Maybe the argument they're going for is to deliberately stab at the Innovator's Dilemma: if they burn their ships on mobile and embedded, they won't be reliant on it in the next 10 years as RISC-V eats their lunch.

That requires a huge commitment to this grand new vision of ARM For The Datacentre(tm), and I sort of wonder if this move might spook even that market.

I could imagine that there was some interest in ARM from hyperscalers because it was amenable to more customized SoC-style designs-- bolting on your own preferred bag of accelerators, management features, and specialized communication fabrics on top of a bag of standardized cores.