How can ARM attract and manage so many ecosystem partners? In the world of connected devices including smartphones, tablets, wearables and storage, British-based and Japanese SoftBank-owned semiconductor company ARM Holdings has an 85–90 per cent market share worldwide. Their success is often explained by their extensive ecosystem. It is central for their business model of only creating and developing its core microprocessor chips and then licensing the technology as intellectual property (IP) for open innovation rather than manufacturing and selling its own set of final products.

ARM designs core processors that read in instructions to perform specific actions that make smartphones, tablets, etc., function. These instructions are linked together in a way that in real time they make up our smartphone or tablet experience;

everything we do on these and other devices must be processed by the processor. Whenever we open an app or folder, write a text message or watch a video it requires a core processor.

ARM is a design company that creates the process architecture and an instruction set (a basic set of capabilities and features a processor makes available to software applications).

They then license this to partner companies that improve it and pair it with whatever hardware and software seems appropriate (e.g. wireless connectivity, graphics, USB connections and various connected devices or applications).