I am open this post because I want to see where all these are going...

Personally I never used Arduino maybe because I pass the line of the newbies, but recently I saw some clones from AVR to ARM like (STM32) and PIC (MAX32), which show that Open Source such as Arduino seems attractive. They provide source code and with some modification any one can create their clones for different MCU architecture. But is this only because they want to make money from their PCB based on that MCU or this is just for fun and hobby?

If the Arduino approach is so attractive why ARM do not create an extra API layer with similar command and add it to their lib? So every one then can have their known API from Arduino and can migrate to ARM or other MCU. Why need to create Arduino IDE Clones, everythig can be solve through APIs isn't it?

For example mbed moves in some way similar to Arduino but their approach is different it is more close to extra API layer as I mention above rather than creation of new IDE, ofcause they have their IDE through browser. Finally to close my speech I want to say: assume users will choose their platform and develop their embedded application but by the end if someone want to go deeper they will need the real debugging, which mean proper IDE interface. I am quite happy because recently I saw that mbed understand that, and moves to the direction to help in debug process and try to support many compilers, what about Arduino? Are they provide some solution for proper debug?

Ofcause I have also other things to say but for the moment I thing I need to put a dot.

Regards, Stas

"... or this is just for fun and hobby?" And for educational institutions.

I think for institution these are not proper platform at least at the moment without proper debug tools. For Instutution they have to learn student to think. They must to teach about everything what is inside the MCU. At least for hardware engineer and electronics engineer. For example when they teach you about Transistors, Gates etc they teach you everything in a deep level. If the MCU platform which they add to institution is just to put extra course to their list I think this is not the solution. If student do not understand what are registers, what is memory, ALU, etc and how to controls the peripherals, they will always depend of the people who provides they hardware and they additional API. If you teach 10 years old kids this is fine, but if you go to instutution you should think about right teaching materials which will equip them with strong knowledge for they future. I am wrong? And if the providers of API made some mistake and have a bug or miss some features, this means for you unknown errors and questions of to how to solve the problem. And even if you find the fix you maybe be wonder is it secure enough, it will work always?