Arduino has a new job selling chips for its new owner. Let's not pretend otherwise

Opinion The successful, sector-defining, open source Italian embedded platform provider Arduino had a little bash in Turin recently. It made a few announcements, including a new single-board computer (SBC) with a Qualcomm system on a chip (SoC). Oh, and that it had been bought by American dragon-themed mobile chip monster Qualcomm in a deal with total fealty (WTF).

Qualcomm says its partnership with Arduino will make it more accessible to developers, and make its technologies more easily available to the edge. Which is true enough, up to a point.

A lot of cheap dev boards and Qualcomm-flavored software tools will certainly give the company access to entire sectors previously excluded. Qualcomm hitherto only talked to big old companies who'd sign big old contracts with big old secrets. Now Qualcomm silicon and software can get into the hands of individuals, educators and inventive start-ups. That's where the future comes ...