The ups and downs (mostly downs) of one of the Big 3 Electronics Design Automation (EDA) vendors Cadence Design Systems have been frequent topics in this blog space since the autumn of 2008. The last update occurred here on January 9, 2009, when it was announced that Cadence had given up its search for an outside CEO and had appointed Lip-Bu Tan as president and CEO the day before. Tan had been the interim vice chairman of the Board of Directors and member of the Interim Office of the Chief Executive. For the record, Cadence stock closed regular trading on January 08 at $4.12, up $0.09 or 2.23%. In after hours trading, the stock lost 2.36%, trading at $4.02, implying a Market Cap just north of $1 billion. In early February 2009, Cadence reported actual Q4 2008 revenue of $227 million, less than 50% of the revenue of $458 million reported for Q4 2007. On a GAAP basis, Cadence suffered a net loss of $1.64 billion, or minus $6.57 per share in Q4 2008, compared to net income of $120 million in Q4 2007, or plus $0.41 per share. After the Q4 2008 results were announced on February 4, Cadence shares closed at $3.65, although the shares rebounded the next day to close at $4.20 each. ...

 

On January 22 and January 30, 2009, related blog entries appeared in this space that discussed the impact of the general US economic collapse on a small EDA IP supplier (Virage Logic) located in Silicon Valley.

If those two January blog entries were of any interest to you, you may like to read the latest overall financial report & commentary on seven key Electronics IP Providers, posted in EDAcafe.com on February 20, 2009.

http://www10.edacafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=656383

The road to the future is not a projection of the past.  As the book "The Black Swan" suggests, improbable events occur frequently.  It is unlikely that a specific event (earthquake - mud slide - drought - and on) will occur.  But, it is probable that some improbable event will occur often.  So projections of events based upon a naive analysis will be flawed.  Expect a decisive turn of events.  Good or bad. 

The trend in technology to believe in short term trend extrapolations is naive at best.  So what do we do?  HP looks at the top 1% of patents, determined by the reference frequency, to learn the trends.  Even if we didn't know what they are.  And seven of eight of these salient inventions are done by individuals or small organizations.   Only one in eight is initiated by large organizations. 

Let’s look at the social trends.  Engineers are in short supply.  CAD/CAM training is lengthy and ponderous.  We expand a problem to fit our concept of solution.  For an analogy, consider monster trucks....

I saw an amazing presentation while I was at TED last week. Several amazing ones actually, but this one is both relevant to our community and available for viewing. Take a look at David Merrill’s Shiftables at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html

As a welcome antidote to chronically depressing economic news, two recently-published articles caught the eye of this mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) veteran (1). Appearing within 10 days of each other, the two articles discussed progress in the often-esoteric world of 3D MCAD solid modeling. First, on January 26, 2009 in MCADcafe Weekly, Contributing Editor and CAD veteran Jeff Rowe published an extensive article entitled, “NX 6 – Synchronous Modeling Promotes Design Freedom.” In the article, Jeff reviewed user design and modeling experiences with Siemens PLM’s NX 6 software product. Then on February 4, 2009, Autodesk (San Rafael, CA) unveiled its plans for “Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology” that promises to unite parametric, history-based modeling with direct, history-free modeling. More on this announcement below. Based in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM had announced the pending release of its NX 6 digital product development software on May 20, 2008 in conjunction with its annual industry...

On February 3, 2009, The CAD Society announced that it had appointed an Interim President and interim Vice President to take the CAD Society forward into the new year. Rachael Dalton-Taggart, 20 year industry veteran and Director of Marketing with Lattice Technology, will be Interim President until later this year. Ken Feitz, 18 year industry veteran, and Marketing Manager at TransMagic Inc. will take on the roles of Vice President and Treasurer for the same term. The CAD Society was formed in 1990, as part of the NCGA (National Computer Graphics Association), and it split out on its own when the NCGA ended. Since then, the CAD Society has been best known for its annual awards recognizing the achievements of CAD industry leaders. Those awards have been presented at the annual COFES since 2000. Retiring President Mike McGrath commented on the change, "Rachael and Ken have both been actively assisting the CAD Society for some time now, and they have been responsible for several changes to the CAD Society...

The legacy lingers if not the man. Already 14 months old and counting, Bush 43’s second recession in 8 years dealt another body blow to the staggering US economy in January 2009.

The US labor department reported just this morning that US employers eliminated 598,000 more jobs in January, the most since 1974, and drove the US unemployment rate to 7.6%, further proof that the nation's job climate continues to deteriorate at an alarming pace with no end in sight.

The latest net total of actual job losses for January 2009 was far worse than the eye-popping figure of 524,000 that economists had been predicting. Job reductions in November and December also were deeper than previously reported, and no doubt January’s numbers will increase as well.

Think we need a Stimulus Bill passed quickly? Think tax cuts alone will do the trick?