( ESNUG 336 Item 3 ) -------------------------------------------- [11/11/99]
Subject: Two Xilinx Engineers Defend Their Company's "New" Web Presence
> Switch to the quasi-EDA world of FPGAs and the web panecea hits new
> heights with "Club Xilinx" -- the ultimate in web corporate con games to
> make our over-weight welfare mom appear to look like Pamela Lee Anderson.
> Go to <http://www.xilinx.com> and ask yourself: "What has fundamentally
> changed with Xilinx FPGAs or software?" -- and you'll see it's 98 percent
> hype, renaming, repackaging, and propaganda. Yeach.
>
> - from Industry Gadfly "Heads Up! Elephants!"
From: Ed McGettigan <ed.mcgettigan@xilinx.com>
John,
What in the world are you talking about? The "Club Xilinx" part of our web
site was only for the few weeks surrounding DAC and did provide interesting
webcasts presentations from Geoffrey Moore, John Chambers, Aart deGeus,
Scott McNealy and our CEO Wim Roelandts.
I don't believe that we've had a splash screen up for quite sometime now on
this and I'm sure that we never promoted it as a change in FPGA or Software.
It's all still there at http://www.xilinx.com/company/tradeshows/dac99.htm
I've thought that we've been doing a real good job with our web site and
even added the http://support.xilinx.com site which is purely technical.
The answers database and applications note sections grow daily and there are
a lot of resources there including the software manuals.
If you really want to see what has changed in FPGAs, then bring up
http://www.xilinx.com/products/virtex.htm
If you want to see what has changed in software, our WebFitter, then bring
up http://www.xilinx.com/products/software/software.htm
If you want to see what's new for IP Cores and reference designs, bring up
http://www.xilinx.com/ipcenter/index.htm
If you want to buy the software or a training course then bring up
http://toolbox.xilinx.com/cgi-bin/xilinx.storefront
If you want details on the webcast training course then bring up
http://www.xilinx.com/support/training/E-Learn_sched.htm
The meat is there John, I just don't see what your beef is about.
- Ed McGettigan
Xilinx
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From: "Dennis Rose" <Dennis.Rose@xilinx.com>
John,
You know I look forward to the joy of reading your ESNUG emails and of
discovering what witty wisdom has been humorously embedded there. But you
missed some of the real changes happening regarding Xilinx FPGA designs,
the power of field upgradability and increasing access over the Internet.
An engineer can extend the life of a product by including the ability to
download updated bitstreams to FPGAs. An engineer can do this through
a number of mechanisms including downloading across the web. We've had
customers report multimillion dollar savings in hardware upgrades or fixes
which would have been required due to changing standards or conditions.
These savings were had because of the ability to send new bitstreams to
their Xilinx FPGAs.
Xilinx's internet based Silicon Xpresso initiative includes the Webfitter,
a free web-based CPLD design fitting software tool that allows engineers
to fit and evaluate designs in minutes over the web without having had
to download software. The CORE Generator links over the net to get latest
released COREs. See:
<http://www.xilinx.com/products/software/sx/sxpresso.html>
<http://www.xilinx.com/sxpresso/webfitter.htm>
<http://www.xilinx.com/products/logicore/coregen/index.htm>
The Internet is sexy and productive. It's rocking our world. It's OK to
use it in the context of offering tools for product life extension
flexibility in the face of fast paced change.
- Dennis Rose
Xilinx
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