!!! "It's not a BUG, 
/o o\ / it's a FEATURE!" (508) 429-4357
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\ - / INDUSTRY GADFLY: "The Whole Story of these DATE Conferences"
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by John Cooley
Holliston Poor Farm, P.O. Box 6222, Holliston, MA 01746-6222
Although I've never attended Europe's DAC conference (which they call "DATE"
for some reason), for years I've received their announcements:
From: Fred Santamaria <fredmarcom=user domain=aol got calm>
DATE 06 - Munich - March 7, 2006
Total closing number of visitors = 4,651
Conference Delegates (attendees) = 1,576 (+ 100 to 2005)
Exhibition Visitors = 1,767 (- 300 to 2005)
Exhibitors Personnel = 1,250
International Press = 58
European Visitors = 70%
Germany = 38%
Rest of the World = 30%
DATE 07 will be in Nice, France next year 16 to 20, April 2007.
- Fred Santamaria
DATE 06 Press Chair
But it wasn't until I got an email from Kevin Silver of Denali that I got
the *whole* story of what these DATE conferences are really like.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: Kevin Silver <kevin=user domain=denali spot gone>
Hi, John,
I know you like hearing about how a conference went but I thought I'd do
something a bit different -- instead I'm sending you a *photographic* trip
report of what really happened at the recent DATE'06 in Munich. After all,
pictures never lie do they?
Here was the "crowd" at the DATE keynote address:
Here was the 3rd annual European SystemC/SystemVerilog Users Group meeting:
Since no one bothered to show for the 7th annual European VHDL Users Group
meeting in the next room, I didn't take a picture of it.
I felt sorry for the Magma people. Their 64 square meter booth was sooooooo
empty at this year's DATE.
In the picture, the Magma guy on the right (in the black shirt) spent most of
his time playing Tetris on his demo PC. He got pretty good at it.
The 90 square meter Cadence booth was just as empty.
Their receptionist read 2 romance novels while killing time there.
Every time I looked over at the 240 square meter Synopsys booth, Aart was
alone by himself doing his taxes.
"Schedule D Form 1041 -- Tax Computation Using Maximum Capital Gains Rates
(Complete this part only if both lines 14a and 15 in column (2) are gains,
or an amount is entered in Part I or Part II and there is an entry on
Form 1041, line 2b(2), and Form 1041, line 22 is more than zero.)"
Here was a typical moment in our small 30 square meter Denali booth:
Because of the Munich fire codes, we were restricted to only 10 people at a
time in our Denali booth (1 person per 3 square meters.) My money-obsessed
CEO, Sanjay Srivastava, is so cheap, he won't let me lease a larger booth!
Here was the overflow crowd we had waiting for Denali at this year's DATE:
Every time I nag Sanjay that the DATE Vendors Committee always, always,
always later charges us rent on this extra waiting space, he doesn't hear
me! Sanjay seems to think he's still somehow saving money by keeping us in
one of those small 30 square meter booths. He won't listen!
Simply put, life is not that easy selling fanatically popular memory models
and world class verification IP. Managing these hoards of eager customers,
each walking into our booth with their own pre-approved Purchase Orders to
buy our entire Denali product line, is an awful lot of work! :(
- Kevin Silver, VP Marketing
Denali Software, Inc. Palo Alto, CA
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Editor's Note: I'd like to thank Kevin for his report of what really goes on
at these "DATE" conferences. It's the vigilance of dedicated people like him
that keeps the EDA public fully informed. (And in some unrelated news I'd
like to wish all my ESNUG readers a happy April Fool's Day tomorrow.) - John
-----
John Cooley runs the E-mail Synopsys Users Group (ESNUG), is a
contract ASIC designer, and loves hearing from engineers at
or (508) 429-4357.
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