ARM’s experience shows why Steve Jobs is right on Flash

Think that Steve Jobs is talking out of his behind when he says  that Apple needs full control over its platform? Perhaps ARM’s experience with Smartbooks will help you understand:

‘ARM dominates the mobile phone chip design market and has since 2008 been trying to get into the subnotebook market as well. The plan was to do so through Linux-based, ARM-powered ‘smartbooks’ that would provide an instant-on, longer-life alternative to x86-based netbooks but, according to ARM’s marketing vice president, Ian Drew, events have conspired to stall this plan.

“We thought [smartbooks] would be launched by now, but they’re not,” Drew told ZDNet UK on Tuesday. “I think one reason is to do with software maturity. We’ve seen things like Adobe slip — we’d originally scheduled for something like 2009.”‘

If you hand your developer platform over to a third party, you’re handing the whole platform over to them. You’re effectively tying your fate to theirs, and allowing them control over your future. For some, that might be acceptable. But for Apple, it’s not.

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