[Jelc]

Unless someone is pulling someone elses leg, Apple are positioning themselves to purchase ARM for a paltry $8 billion.

This is not an internet based rumour either, the London Evening Standard has received reports, or hearsay, that Apple is after ARM. It certainly has the cash to do so with liquid assets of $42 billion. ARM has the best performance/per watt technology for the mobile phone market and other embedded markets with its ARM based Cortex processors and currently has 5% of the microcontroller market.

"A deal would make a lot of sense for Apple," said one trader. "That way, they could stop ARM's technology from ending up in everyone else's computers and gadgets."

The chipmaker's shares shot up 8.1p to 251.1p, topping the Footsie winners' list, as more than five million shares changed hands by midday.

Happy days for those that own ARM shares.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=951