Lee Smith, co-founder of ARM and now an ARM fellow, described to the CUE training event how ARM was started as twelve people (described as twelve people in a leaky lifeboat) and went on to power most mobiles and other handsets. RISC technology was developed at Acorn Computers to produce a low power, low cost but high performance chip which addressed a global market. Great technology and a great technical team had to be focused into a product and sold. ARM has jsut zoomed past the 10billion processor designs shipped. It is big and it is global.
ARM adopted a partnership model where each company manages and finances it’s own development and acts in it’s own enlightened self interest. This is very different from a joint venture which is jointly managed. From fewer than 10 partners in 1991, there were over 2,200 delegates at the partnership conference in 2006.
It is a great, great story and the only disappointing thing is that not many people associate ARM with the Cambridge Cluster compared to “Intel Inside” and Silicon Valley. ARM had commercial investors from the start and so few very well-healed angels have been produced from such an incredible success to keep the Cambridge Cluster steaming ahead.
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