ARM Extends Into IoT Software

This year, ARM will release a free, open source operating system for Cortex-M devices and processor-agnostic IoT cloud software that it will license on a royalty basis for large service providers. The so-called mbed platform is the first product of a new business unit focused on the Internet of Things and the latest effort at unifying the fragmented sector.

Embedded software companies are just beginning to discover their partner ARM is now a competitor.

Christian Legare, chief technology officer of Micrium, heard the news from a reporter shortly after he arrived in Silicon Valley for this week's ARM Tech Con, where mbed is being announced. Just a week ago, Micrium announced its own end-to-end software for IoT nodes and clouds. He took a wait-and-see position on the news, saying he wants to find out details of ARM's software in meetings this week.

In some ways, "the writing was on the wall," Legare said. "In PCs, Intel invested hundred of millions for Linux. In smartphones, Google invested for Android, and in embedded, we expected a similar situation."

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