Editor's Note: The rumors about ViewLogic buying Chronologic Simulations
  are true.  It was just announced that Chrono was bought for $26 million.
  Chrono is to remain a separate division of ViewLogic.  When asked about
  having two divisions of the same company having mutually exclusive market
  goals (Vantage pushing VHDL and Chrono pushing Verilog), Alain Hanover,
  President of ViewLogic replied:

   "It's always been my dream to give my customers a choice between
    ViewLogic & ViewLogic.  Vantage is a great VHDL simulator.  We were
    OEMing CAD Artisans' Verilog product for over a year.  We weren't
    making a lot of headway because we kept losing benchmarks to Chrono.
    We decided we rather switch than fight.  Let the customer vote
    for Verilog or VHDL with their dollars.  We're HDL neutral."

  When asked how this impacts Synopsys, Aart de Geus, President & CEO replied:

   "Here's a good example of industry interdependency.  Synopsys supports VCS
    (the Chrono Verilog simulator) because Chronologics has been a forward
    looking adoptor of SWIFT - the interface that guarentees all LMC models
    will work with a specific simulator.  Interestingly it appears that
    ViewLogic has positioned itself to now be a major competitor to Cadence
    in the simulation market yet it'll remain Synopsys/LMC compatible."

  Personal Opinion: With Cadence and ViewLogic becoming neutrals in the
  Verilog/VHDL wars (because they offer both products) it will be only
  a matter of time until Mentor and Synopsys will follow.  The days when the
  visiting EDA salesman tries to strong arm you into a specific HDL because
  his company only sells a simulator in that HDL are numbered.  Thank God
  (and market forces!)
                                             - John Cooley
                                               the ESNUG guy