As soon as the large, dominant players in the market – Dell, Oracle, HP, etc. – give the “all-clear” to let ARM processors run in enterprise applications, we could very well see ARM begin selling licenses to the highest bidder that would allow them to begin building their own ARM processors. Inevitably, this would provide a boon to the semiconductor industry and we could even see Dell or Oracle acquiring a semiconductor manufacturer to exclusively build their ARM processors.
At this point, Red Hat could tailor a Linux OS that runs flawlessly on 32-bit and 64-bit ARM architecture, which would lead to a proliferation of the virtualization software market and within 10 years we could see entire server racks replaced with a single machine running a handful of ARM processors alongside SSD/Flash storage.
And voila, the first truly green data center is achieved! With low power consumption and a low heat output, these machines will leave a very small footprint and dramatically change the IT landscape for data centers. Although it is estimated that the first 64-bit ARM server won’t come to market until at least 2014, it could definitely be the beginning of an interesting story.
In the meantime, please feel free to check out all of our refurbished processors.