( ESNUG 489 Item 3 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/11/11]
Subject: 59% of MENT rivals rate Wally's Mentor as "Generally Positive"
SHOW ME THE MONEY: Mentor's rivals tend to judge Wally's Mentor in terms
of its stock price, marketshare, and acquisitions instead of best-in-class
tools, killer R&D and keeping customers happy. I guess this makes sense;
they are *business* rivals after all!
In a CNBC interview on Tuesday, Carl Icahn said that Mentor Graphics
"should be acquired, or at the very least, be put up for sale." The
NY Times reports that Icahn owns 14.7% of the company and he plans
to nominate at least 3 new directors to the Mentor board next week.
I feel Mentor's present management and how Mentor is currently
run as an EDA company is (CHOOSE ONE):
A. Generally positive.
: ############################## 59%
B. Generally neutral.
: ########## 19%
C. Generally negative.
: ########### 22%
Comments? What's your reasoning for your choice?
Of 43 rivals in this survey, 19 commented in some way on this question.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
A. Generally positive.
I think that Mentor is striving to keep a marketshare that allows for a
dominate position in strategic areas. They recognize that they cannot
do all things for all people, so the only play in areas where they have
a strength.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
Generally Negative. They have had lots of opportunities with acquisitions
to be further ahead yet MENT continues living on their cash cow. They
have remained at same level for years because they do not listen to the
people that they acquire.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative.
Missed opportunities, stagnant management. Given their current position
they should be much more aggressive in the M&A arena. With Magma and
Cadence staggering, they had/have a golden opportunity that they are not
capitalizing on.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive.
Their stock is up 80% over the last 12 months matching Cadence. Synopsys
is up only 36%. By comparison the Nasdaq is up 30%.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive.
People gave Mentor up for dead at about $400 M. They were permanently
stuck there but Wally figured out how to unlock that threshold. Also,
they're the most innovative of the Big 3 in missionary product areas.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative.
Mentor's management (with the notable exceptions of Joe Sawicki, who has
done an outstanding job with Calibre, and Robert Hum, who also is superb)
is a "good old boys" network and run like a country club. They need to
get rid of (at a minimum) Hinckley, Maulsby, Cantow, Potts, and Corbacho;
who are clueless how to grow a company in this new era we're in.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
B. Generally neutral.
Mentor has been the "solid 3rd" for too long to earn a positive response.
On the other hand, they have been around longer than any other EDA
company, so you can't give that kind of longevity a negative rating.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive.
They decided to stop fighting for what is called the $4 billion pie and
expand to other areas to increase revenues e.g. ESL, embedded software,
mechanical system simulation.
Also Mentor took the risk to create their own C-based design tool
(Catapult) and push it through the market doing a great "evangelization"
job for high level synthesis.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
B. Generally neutral.
They didn't capitalize much on DFM. Didn't innovate much, but managed
to retain some market share.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive
Mentor has selected key product areas to pursue where they are able to
field best-of-class solutions. With reduced competition in these spaces,
Mentor is able to fund continued innovation and evolution.
In addition, I believe that Wally Rhines is one of the most visionary
CEOs in EDA and I would hate to see him leave.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative.
They have operating in a very narrow technology roadmap and have not
expanded into other markets that are currently dominated by Cadence
and SNPS, when they should have. The EDA market being a slow growth
market and an almost constant in the total TAM aspect requires
dominant and financially sound players such as Mentor to be more
aggressive and to adjust its focus and broaden its technology offering.
It opens up new markets that it participated in a very limited manner.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wally's claims "Buy #1 or #2" and then buys #5 at best.
Aside from Calibre and its sisterlings, just what is their real business?
At one time the leader in boards, but not a focus for 15+ years in sales.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative.
Mentor is a very non-innovative company the way it is run now. They
avoid developing new produces wherever possible.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive
Of the Big 3, Mentor is by some distance the nice face of EDA. They are
the most customer interested (they're all focused - there's a difference)
and offer the most collaborative way of working. That is a culture
driven from the top and embodied by the masses.
As an example even with Calibre at the height of its powers (which it
still largely is) they were open to doing deals to enable access for
small & mighty alike. I worked for Synopsys before and I can tell you
had Calibre been in their hands not one cent of discount would have
been given without a drop a blood coming back the other way.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative.
- Chuck Reynolds of TSI EDA, Inc.
B. Generally neutral.
The company has not grown much.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive.
Over the years Wally has been doing a good job diversifying MENT to
non-core EDA areas, such as embedded systems.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
C. Generally negative.
As said on CNBC, Mentor is a country club. Their SG&A is way too high.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
B. Generally neutral.
I agree Mentor could be more assertive in growth, although as an ex-Mentor
employee, I would hate to see this occur at the cost of their employees.
Mentor's investment into their employees have resulted in solid market
strengths. What needs to change is their reluctance to pursue known good
markets and to expand into new market segments outside of traditional EDA.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
A. Generally positive.
Wally generally gets good reviews in the EDA community. Mentor could do
a lot worse (confused readers should Google: "FISTER CADENCE FAILURE").
Wally certainly is a nicer guy that Art, but maybe that is the problem.
I am always amazed at Wally's ability to find some bizarre curve fitting
algorithm to bolster the claim that Moore's Law is heathy when it isn't.
The EVE lawsuit is really a POS. I'm embarrassed for Mentor. If they
can't win fair and square at Intel, don't use the worldwide legal system
as the place to throw your temper tantrum.
- [ An Anon EDA Vendor ]
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