On January 22, 2009, a blog entry in this space discussed the impact of the general US economic collapse on a small EDA IP supplier (Virage Logic) located in Silicon Valley. We promised the following: “Virage Logic's management will announce first-quarter fiscal year 2009 results on Wednesday, January 28, 2009. We’ll keep an eye on them for ya.”Well, Virage Logic followed through and on January 28, 2009 did report its financial results for the first fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2008. Total revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 was reported as $11.3 million, compared with $14.1 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2008 and $15.5 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008. The $11.3 million was right in the middle of the revised revenue range estimated on December 30, 2008.As reported under US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Virage Logic’s official net loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 was reported January 28 at $2.6 million, or ($0.11) per share, compared with net income...

The 40th anniversary of the "Mother of all Demos" (see Wikipedia entry) was held at The Tech Museum in San Jose and at Stanford on December 8 and 9, 2008. Marty Wasserman interviewed me there; see it here.

Our own Dick Morley is interviewed on NCMS Radio. Listen to him talk about the invention of the floppy disk, the PLC, etc. It's an interesting chat.

http://www.ncms.org/blog/post/09-ncmsradioep5.aspx

For those who may not make it a regular practice to read Frank Rich’s New York Times op-ed piece every Sunday, please allow me to recommend it to your attention.

Yesterday’s Frank Rich column (“No Time for Poetry”) was especially important, as it contained a concise explanation of the challenge to all Americans (of all political stripes) that was inherent in President Obama’s Inaugural Address of January 20, 2009. It helps set the stage for the cooperation that will be required for us to pull ourselves out of the deep and dangerous economic quagmire of 2008 – 2009.

Copy and Paste this URL into your browser:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/opinion/25rich.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Information Week just published an article on users who are choosing to abandon their maintenance contracts for Oracle and SAP

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/erp/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212902014&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=

Our industry is also at risk for this type of push-back. Do you know how much of your maintenance fee is rolled back into development? Ask your vendor. Let me know how we're doing as an industry.

Maieutic Parataxis was a big hit at COFES 2008. We filmed the event and have just made the 5-minute presentations viewable by the general public at http://cofes.com/mp

Take a look. 

We're seeking candidates for Maieutic Parataxis at COFES 2009. Let us know if you've seen something we should consider.

Last week, Cyon Research published its 2008 CAD/PLM Survey. The survey takes a deep look at industry buying preferences. Lots of detail and deep insight. More information on the $1,995 survey is available from info@cyonresearch.com.

 

In past months, blog entries in this space have described the impact of the collapsing US and worldwide economy on relatively large Mechanical CAD (MCAD) and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) vendors, such as Autodesk, Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, and the like. But of course, smaller providers in similar market niches are also affected, sometimes with very harsh results. Take Virage Logic, for example. Virage Logic is a provider of semiconductor intellectual property (IP) for the design of complex integrated circuits. The company’s product portfolio includes embedded SRAMs, embedded NVMs, embedded test and repair, logic libraries, memory development software, and DDR memory controller subsystems.Virage Logic is one of six public Electronic IP suppliers located in Silicon Valley; Virage’s annual revenues rank it approximately in the middle of this competitive six-pack. But the dominant market lead belongs to ARM Holdings based in the UK; ARM’s revenues are 5X its nearest IP rival, and ARM is the only one...

Yesterday, January 20, 2009, was a banner day for hundreds of millions of people across the USA and around the world, as Barack Obama was inaugurated the 44th US President.There were even elements of good business news that broke through. For example, the Wall Street Journal reported, "Bucking the trend of high-tech competitors, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) posted a 12% gain in fourth-quarter profit and gave an upbeat outlook for 2009." IBM said that in spite of facing "an extremely difficult economic environment," it predicts it will "continue to benefit from the increasing profitability of its software and services businesses." IBM asserted that "customers are continuing to sign up for outsourcing and other services contracts." The WS Journal also reported that "Fiat, Chrysler and Cerberus Capital Management...announced that they have signed a non-binding term sheet to establish a global strategic alliance." As a "consideration for Fiat Group's contribution to the alliance of strategic assets,...

Note: This blog entry was first posted on January 16, 2009.Further to the impact of the US economic collapse previously discussed in this blog space, on January 15, 2009 Autodesk, Inc. announced a restructuring plan to reduce its annual operating expenses. The company anticipates the restructuring will result in annual pre-tax cost savings of approximately $130 million annually starting in its fiscal year 2010. As part of its restructuring plan, Autodesk plans to reduce its staff by approximately 750 employees, representing approximately 10% of the company's global workforce. The company also plans to consolidate certain facilities. The actions are in addition to the ongoing cost reduction initiatives previously announced, which included a hiring freeze, business travel restrictions, and other reductions in its operating expenses. As a result of this restructuring, the company anticipates taking a pre-tax charge in the range of $65 million to $75 million. For more info, copy and paste the following URL into your...

Despite widespread public skepticism that she is the right choice, on January 13, 2009 Yahoo named former Autodesk chief executive Carol Bartz as its new CEO in an effort to revive the struggling Internet company. Bartz replaces Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.Yahoo has been suffering from slowing growth and tough competition from Google. Many Yahoo investors are still upset over the failed $47.5 billion takeover bid by Microsoft in 2008 ($33 per share), which given the subsequent collapse of the US economy, might have been the right move for Yahoo. On January 13, 2009 Yahoo stock fell 1% to $12.10.Now 60 years old, Carol Bartz led Autodesk for 14 years. Its annual revenue grew five-fold by the time she stepped down in 2006, while its share price increased 10-fold during her tenure. Bartz remains as chairwoman of Autodesk. She's also on the board of Cisco Systems, alongside Yang, in addition to serving on the boards of Intel and NetApp.Despite Carol’s spectacular success at Autodesk, skeptics worry whether she’s the...

Further to previous blog entries in this space concerning the debate over the US government helping the Big 3 US auto companies weather the current recession, comes the following news from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers:DEARBORN, Mich., Jan 11 /PRNewswire/ -- If the Detroit Three gradually disappeared, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, the Koreans, and the Chinese would eventually fill the gap. In "Factory Man," a new autobiography being published in February 2009 by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME; http://www.sme.org), author James E. Harbour says there is an even greater long-term risk. Profits from the American auto industry would largely be sent overseas, and millions of shareholders would go broke. Worse, the foreign companies would keep their major engineering operations at home.In his book "Factory Man," Harbour says what America needs right now is a good jolt of the power of the factory. During recent Washington hearings, he viewed elected officials playing a game of liquidation roulette with...

EDA vendor Cadence has been a frequent topic in this blog space since last Fall.Yesterday, January 8, 2009 Cadence announced that it has given up its search for an outside CEO and has unanimously appointed Lip-Bu Tan as president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. Tan had been the interim vice chairman of the Board of Directors and member of the Interim Office of the Chief Executive. Consequent to the appointment of Tan, the Interim Office of the Chief Executive has been dissolved. John Shoven will continue to serve as chairman of the Board of Directors. Charlie Huang will serve as senior vice president and chief strategy officer; and Kevin Palatnik will continue to serve as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Lip-Bu Tan has been a member of Cadence's Board of Directors since 2004, and serves as a member of the Finance and Technology Committees of the Board. Tan continues to serve as chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm he founded in 1987. He has also been associated...

The Labor Department today revealed W’s last lame-duck 2008 “gift” to the US economy…another 524,000 jobs lost in December.

Also, new revisions for both October and November turn out to be even deeper than previously estimated. Revised figures show that US employers slashed 584,000 positions in November as well as 423,000 in October.

For all of 2008, the US economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs. That’s the most in one year since 1945, folks!

If you are interested in what caused the 2008 US Financial Mess, and in suggestions for repairing the damage, you would be well-advised to read two back-to-back articles that appeared in the Sunday January 4, 2009 New York Times by Michael Lewis and David Einhorn, entitled,

“The End of the Financial World as We Know It”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html?_r=1&th&emc=th


“How to Repair a Broken Financial World”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhornb.html?th&emc=th

Happy New Year !!

Let’s all work to make 2009 far more healthful and prosperous for everyone than 2008!