COFES attendees and/or aficionados interested in the recent and future performances of key Electronics IP and MCAD/MCAE public software vendors are invited to read the latest quarterly Commentaries published on EDAcafe and MCADcafe Internet portals. (Earlier blog entries in this space on March 13, 2009 and June 07, 2009 provided access to similar articles for previous quarters). The latest Electronics Intellectual Property (IP) Commentary was posted on August 18, 2009. It covers ARM, CEVA, MIPS, MoSys, Rambus and Virage Logic. Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www10.edacafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=730002 The latest MCAD Industry Commentary was posted today. It covers ANSYS, Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, ESI Group, MSC.Software and PTC. Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www10.mcadcafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=730825 (NOTE: The latest Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Commentary was posted on June 04, 2009. It covered Altium,...

Brian Seitz and I developed this data reshaper to get our survey data ready for Tableau Software. It still could use an error rountine.  Be sure to read the notes and assumptions.  Comments and improvements are welcome.

This is a data reshaper for Excel for data that does will need to be moved into two columns: one for the column name and one for the data. It still could use an error rountine.  Be sure to read the notes and assumptions.  Comments and improvements are welcome.

Qualifier - This IS for data that does not reflect the column.

This breaking news at 5:30 AM PDT Friday August 7th verifies the August 2nd blog entry in this space:

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent. It was a better than expected showing that offered a strong signal that the recession is finally ending."

In four previous blog entries in this space (April 03, May 25, June 06, and July 05), comments were made regarding the search for signs of the “bottoming out” of the current recession that had already reigned for fourteen months under Bush 43 and that has since bedeviled the new President Obama. While there were in fact several published statistics that suggested a recession bottom may have been reached after Obama’s $787 billion Economic Stimulus Program was enacted earlier this year, sympathy for the woes of the unemployed caused us to focus on the monthly jobs reports from the US Department of Labor. Using that indicator, hopes that we had reached the bottom of the recession during Q2 2009 were dimmed when the June 2009 unemployment numbers seemed to reverse the declining trend of fewer and fewer job losses of the previous few months, even though we knew that unemployment numbers are lagging economic indicators. But finally, a report on the actual GDP of the United States for the second quarter of 2009 appeared on July 31. While the country’s output was still declining in Q2, the annual pace was only minus 1%, compared to the plunge of more than minus 6% in Q1 2009. (Indeed, until Q2 2009, the nation’s GDP had been on a steep negative slope since reaching +4% in Q3 2007.). The just-published Q2 2009 GDP report provides unequivocal evidence that the Obama Stimulus is working and that the bottom of the recession has already been reached. ...

Last week, Cyon Research published its 2009 survey of engineering software users. The survey takes a deep look at buying preferences and practices. Lots of detail and deep insight. More information on the $2000 survey is available from info@cyonresearch.com.

Here's the executive summary:

The economic outlook has never been more uncertain. When will customer spending on engineering software and related hardware recover?

Is the worst over, or can we expect further declines? What is the risk to recurring software maintenance or subscription revenues? How many of your firm’s competitors have already begun investing in their engineering software tools to prepare to gain market share in the eventual recovery? What factors are driving customer spending priorities in the post-recession period? How do you identify the companies that are likely to be the first to increase investments in engineering software?

Cyon Research’s recently completed survey...