Hello everyone

I think you might be looking for too complex answers. Having been using Keil for C51 back and forth for many years, but also doing ARM7 designs the last year, my conclusions are:

1. Keil has done a great job on the 8051 compiler. He wasa simply leading for many years. I don't know of Keils market share, but probably higher than 50% of all commercial compilers. What do you think?

2. Contrary to other posts, Keils ARM compiler stinks! You who said it was good, have you actually been testing it against say Greenhills or ARM's own?

3. For the last year or so (as someone here confirmed), not much has happened with their 8051 compiler. Instead Keil released their ARM compiler - but still today, it only supports ARM7. And it is no good. Left on the to-do list is ARM9, Cortex, ARM11, C++, etc. Looking at Greenhills, ARM and IAR, Keil is a small player.

4. I think Keil saw a constant drop in compiler sales for 8051. The future, if there should be one, was in ARM. But the job was too much to handle, so it was "Hello Dear ARM Ltd, want to buy me?"

5. What was in this for ARM? To start with, Keil is a small company and compared to ARM Ltd, the purchase price was probably peanuts for ARM, but a good pension insurance for Mr. Keil. I think ARM wants the Keil 8051 customer base, and perhaps, for some time, the Keil brand name. I don't think ARM could care less for the current Keil 8051 compiler sales, it is also peanuts for them. They want to get the 50% or more 8051 market share that Keil has to convert to ARM or cortex, and the sooner the better.

6. What does this mean for us 8051 users? Well, if you, like me, are using Keil, be prepared for both "push" and "pull" marketing and tactics to start using ARM micros. I think it is naive to believe the press release quote of "we will still support our 8051 customers..." Maybe Mr. Keil want to do this, as he feels proud over this market, but remember that Mr. Keil does not control Keil any longer. And ARM has absolutely nothing to win for each new 8051 design taking place in the world.

I hope it was ok to write a long post, I just felt that some of you missed some key elements here.

Best Regards

Joseph