Since its founding, Arduino has been a company divided. There have been two companies, Arduino LLC and Arduino Srl, that have operated semi-independently of each other, but now the pair have now decided to work together and will merge into a single corporate entity known as “Arduino Holding.”
A Little Background Info
The first Arduino devices were created by Massimo Banzi and several of his graduate students as an educational tool. Because Arduino devices are designed to be highly adaptable, they can be used to teach students how to program software and how to create devices that use Arduino boards as a hardware controller.
Banzi and the other co-creators later formed a company called Arduino LLC in 2005 that sold Arduino boards in the United States. One of the co-founders, Gianluca Matrino, later established Arduino Srl in Italy, which focused on selling Arduino products to the rest of the world excluding the United States.
The two corporations later clashed with each other as Arduino LLC attempted to expand outside of the United States. The two companies failed to reach a compromise and have since competed with each other. Prior to this conflict, Arduino Srl sold Arduino products developed by Arduino LLC. Since negotiations broke down, however, both companies have developed their products independently of each other.
Meet Arduino Holding And The Arduino Foundation
Now that the two companies have agreed to merge, Arduino Holding will have complete control over the Arduino brand name and sales of all Arduino devices.
“Today is one of the best days in Arduino history. This allows us to start a new course for Arduino made of constructive dialogue and disruptive innovation in the education, Makers and IoT fields,” commented Banzi, Ardunio LLC’s CEO and co-founder. “The Arduino Foundation will allow us to champion the core values of the Arduino Community within the open-source ecosystem and to make our commitment to open-source stronger than ever. This is really a new beginning for Arduino.”Ardunio Mega
Arduino Holding will also found a new non-profit organization called the “Arduino Foundation” that will function as a resource for open-source Arduino software created by Arduino Holding and third-party developers. Arduino Foundation will also offer scholarships and provide support to developers and communities in order to encourage further development of Arduino software.
“Of course, we are thrilled to resolve the issues that have taken place over the past couple of years, and the team is working together to continue to offer the best open hardware and software,” said Federico Musto, CEO & President of Arduino Srl. “We know how passionate our partners and developers are about Arduino, and the growth and loyalty has been astonishing. Arduino developers will continue to see amazing technical developments including NFC, BLE, voice controls, and more, to fuel the IoT growth and other innovations.”
The merger is expected to be completed by the end of this year. With the design teams from each company cooperating together, it is likely we will see some new Arduino designs emerge over the next year that incorporate technologies from both companies.
