ARM Disrupting Processor Business
James Hamilton wrote and article about using ARM processor in servers. He describes how ARM architecture offers better price/performance ratio and consumes less power.
It’s very nice example of disruption. You see, ARM started in small niche of processors that were constrained by small power consumption. They build up knowledge advantage in this field over the years.
And as mobile computing in form of smartphones and tablets is taking over the world, ARM is no more a niche player, they are providing architecture for billions of processors.
And now, ARM is going up market. Interestingly enough it’s beginning to take the very high-end of the processor market – servers.
How long before it is going to strike the real Intel fortress of desktop processors? Well, maybe not that long.
Another interesting aspect is that ARM is licensing the architecture so that others may be producing the chips or even doing their own design of them, as Apple does for their iPhones and iPads.