By Pankaj Maru
For ARM, the chip architecture licensing firm, ‘The Internet of Things’ (IoT) is bringing a huge opportunity for its technology and business. In fact, the UK headquartered company considers the availability of wide variety of computing and mobiles devices in the markets as a positive sign for people, industry and itself.
Range of computing and mobile devices
“Multiple mobile phones and computing devices are positive thing for people as they the choice to from range of devices in different size and shape, can have good performance from variety of devices at different prices. More partners can use our technology products, designs and it is positive for us,” Mark Brass, Vice President – Operations, ARM told Express Computer on sidelines of ARM Technology Symposia in Bangalore on Tuesday.
“The IoT will be pervasive and devices will have some form of monitoring, sensors and data usage. They will be developing programs using data in a way that is not visible at this point of time but will happen over next few years,” added Brass.
The Internet of Things
According to an ARM sponsored report ‘The Internet of Things business index: A quite revolution gathers pace’ conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit in July 2013, revealed that 95% of C-suite executives expect their company to use the IoT in three years’ time for internal (operations or processes) and external (products or services) purpose.
Most of verticals including energy and natural resources, health, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, manufacturing, consumer goods and retail, construction and real estate and IT are in the planning phase of IOT as per the Internet of things business index. Even region wise this trend is visible in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and other parts of the world.
Beyond computing and mobile devices
On the affordability and availability of vast range of computing and mobile devices in markets, Guru Ganesan, President and MD India Operations of ARM, pointed that company is actually enabling these devices to be available at different price points and in variety of form factors, which is an innovation.
“We enable our partners to come out with new products, devices and form factors. We work with partners, enabling them with innovation,” added Ganesan.
He emphasized that company is not just into mobile phones and computing devices but is into other segments as well like printers and scanners (70%), digital cameras and camera phones (80%), set-top boxes (75%), high definition (HD) TV, hard discs (75-80%) and others. More than 90% devices run on ARM processors, claimed Ganesan.
Licensing models and market competition
Unlike other vendors, ARM offers several flexible licensing models for its processors, systems and multimedia IP to partners and device makers. “Each of the licensee gets the existing designs, latest updates as well as technical support from us,” informed Brass.
However, despite of market competition, ARM is confident of dominating markets through its global presence and partners. “We are positive about market competition as we are a global company and along with that we have partnership models that allows alliance with other companies to cater to those markets,” pointed Brass.
“Competition keeps us on toes as it is good for industry and us. For us it helps to come our with new products, devices and designs,” added Ganesan.
Brass further added that recently ARM has acquired a Finnish company Sensinode to create a new business unit to focus and help the implementation of IoT using key technologies that work with IoT.
Opportunity in India
Indian government proposing a ‘National Policy on Electronics’ (NPE) last year, followed by the ambitious plan to set up some 200 electronic manufacturing clusters across the country to boost local electronics manufacturing and designing is likely to create a good demand of semiconductors and processors here. For ARM, this initiative is a huge business potential in the years to come.
“Based on the government’s plan, India has a huge opportunity to establish its self in the area of electronics manufacturing and devices. Beside there’s tremendous rise in the purchase of electronic items and products among the Indians,” observed Ganesan.
In making this initiative into a reality, Ganesan concluded that it would depend on the government, industry bodies and partners to create a local ecosystem of electronic manufacturing market like China, so that it offers big opportunities for every body here.