A rumour has started suggesting that highly profitable Apple is contemplating making a bid to buy ARM.
ARM designs the logic for microprocessors and microcontrollers that are then licensed by third parties who make the chips.
And the logic behind such a move, rumoured in the Evening Standard, is that Apple is ARM's biggest customer and wants to further extend design of chips inside. Apple already has a semiconductor team and has been active in poaching semi executives to work for it.
Such a move would really set the cat among the pigeons, if true. ARM is widely seen as the biggest potential threat to chip giant Intel.
The Standard values such a move as worth over £5 billion, but it's far from certain that such a deal is on the cards.
The report is here.
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Apple would immediately start marginalising ARM by not renewing licensing agreements with companies other than Apple.
ARM is better off serving everyone who wants to pony up the license fee.
Then it became less strategic, and for a long stretch in the late 90s the only positive thing on Apple's balance sheet was the ongoing sale of portions of its ARM holdings (astute readers will recall that ARMHY, now ARMH, went exponential around Y2K).