Yea, this to me signals that Qualcomm is starting to hedge its ARM bets. Given all the kerfuffle around licensing they have had with ARM already, I suspect that they are signaling to ARM that they have options and so ARM's leverage is a lot lower than it might be. That said, there are also huge switching costs to Qualcomm's customers, so this is not a move it takes lightly. In the mean time, I'm sure those Ventana engineers can also help them improve their ARM designs, too.
Maybe Ventana's software engineers can also help Qualcomm fix its BSPs.
.
.
.
I can dream, right?
My guess is that this was mostly an acquihire. I had heard that Ventana had a lot of people that were laid off from Intel for instance.