I am going to presume, for ARM to win any market share, they will have to offer a competitive advantage. ( Correct me if I am wrong )
So where does ARM's Server Chip actually offer an Advantage?
Price - The CPU is only part of the Server's Cost. When you look at the whole picture, The Memory, I/O Controller & SSD, Network, will all cost the same. The higher price of the memory and SSD / HDD, the lower total cost % of the CPU.
And once you lowered to a certain percentage, you want an incredibly cheap, Atom Server CPU is available for less then $50.
Performance - Even in the chance that any ARM's Server CPU market manage to make a competitive CPU core against Xeon, which in itself is an incredible achievement, they will have to also compete against Intel's world class ECC Memory Controller, Network Controller, and I/O controller. All three are the main reason AMD CPU didn't offer any competition even when they are much cheaper.
Power - This is similar to Price, once you factor in the memory and I/O, CPU's role is relatively small. And the power / energy usage scenario on a server much flavor Intel's rather then ARM.
So where does it offer a advantage? When you want a small baremetal server that is cheap, but in the world where VM is a common place, there is no reason why you cant have a small instance of it running on a much larger CPU.
And even Intel admit it, none of their Server Customers, ( Read NONE ) wanted the Atom as they thought. It turns out everyone wanted Xeon-D, you pay a little premium for HUGE amount of flexibility. Intel wanted the Atom to disrupt itself rather then ARM, and it turns out it was the Xeon-D that did that.
The current batch of ARM microserver parts are indeed pretty primitive compared to x86, but each year they will copy more & more of the tricks and optimizations that Intel implemented 10-15 years ago, including the superb virtualization tech. Still I agree they are most likely going to fail due to the inevitable patent infringement lawsuits, the fab gap, and/or customer reluctance WRT deploying ARM SW.
So where does ARM's Server Chip actually offer an Advantage?
Price - The CPU is only part of the Server's Cost. When you look at the whole picture, The Memory, I/O Controller & SSD, Network, will all cost the same. The higher price of the memory and SSD / HDD, the lower total cost % of the CPU. And once you lowered to a certain percentage, you want an incredibly cheap, Atom Server CPU is available for less then $50.
Performance - Even in the chance that any ARM's Server CPU market manage to make a competitive CPU core against Xeon, which in itself is an incredible achievement, they will have to also compete against Intel's world class ECC Memory Controller, Network Controller, and I/O controller. All three are the main reason AMD CPU didn't offer any competition even when they are much cheaper.
Power - This is similar to Price, once you factor in the memory and I/O, CPU's role is relatively small. And the power / energy usage scenario on a server much flavor Intel's rather then ARM.
So where does it offer a advantage? When you want a small baremetal server that is cheap, but in the world where VM is a common place, there is no reason why you cant have a small instance of it running on a much larger CPU. And even Intel admit it, none of their Server Customers, ( Read NONE ) wanted the Atom as they thought. It turns out everyone wanted Xeon-D, you pay a little premium for HUGE amount of flexibility. Intel wanted the Atom to disrupt itself rather then ARM, and it turns out it was the Xeon-D that did that.