Once ARM bought KEIL, KEIL was dead as far as I'm concerned. ARM is not, overall, in the business of promoting 805x-core MCU's. They're in the business of promoting ARM MCU's. As a consequence, it clearly won't take a "rocket scientist" to figure out that they'd benefit from the demise of the 805x core, and they'll do whatever it takes, ultimately, to bring that about. Yes, they'll make some money in the meantime from those poor, misguided souls who buy the KEIL product, but, in the meantime, they'll be working out ways of killing off the 805x in order to increase their own market share.

I wouldn't want to be dedicated to using KEIL tools when they start putting on the pressure to cause the market to shift from 805x to ARM. They're in the business of making money, after all, and their stockholders don't care whether all of us 805x users die. Someone else will come along, after all, to replace us, and maybe they'll use an ARM.

They could, BTW, have made their "evaluation version" a time limited one. Instead, they made it a capability limited one. That way you don't discover all the "gotchas" until after you've made the investment.

RE