( ESNUG 489 Item 6 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/11/11]
Subject: 100% of MENT employees also want Wally's MENT left alone
COMPETITION CONCERNS: Oh, golly (part II), 100% of MENT employees also
want Wally's MENT left alone. Again, no surprises here, but it is
interesting that 70% of MENT employees cited duopoly and/or monopoly
concerns if MENT is dismantled.
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.
In my opinion, the EDA industry and the EDA user community will
be better off overall if (CHOOSE ONE):
A. Mentor is acquired, presumably by Synopsys or Cadence.
: 0%
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
: 0%
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
: ################################################## 100%
Comments? What's your reasoning for your choice?
Of the 13 MENT employees in this survey, 10 commented on this question.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
If Mentor is acquired by Synopsys it would create veritable monopoly
in Test, Physical Verification, and RET. And given Synopsys' position
of reducing costs and investment, where would that leave the EDA
community 4 years from now?
If Mentor is acquired by Cadence it would create a veritable monopoly
in Emulation, PCB, AMS, and Custom IC. And given Cadences poor history
of continuing development of acquired companies, what would happen to
the leading products Mentor delivers today?
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. (X)
Further EDA consolidation approaches monopolization ==> Not good for
anyone. Who would purchase MGC?
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
If Mentor gets acquired, it won't be by Synopsys or Cadence. The FTC
would block it, re: the Sherman Act.
Far more likely will be acquisition by a company who wants an EDA
division (maybe a fab or FPGA maker?), or perhaps a company, like GE,
that dabbles in many things. Tektronix at one time had an EDA division,
as well as oscilloscopes, printers, TV equipment and flat panels. It was
a disaster, but that doesn't mean someone else couldn't make it work.
This could be potentially bad for users if the new parent company
decides to run MENT like a cash cow. This happened, at a very low
level, in the early days of OrCAD before they were acquired by Cadence.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
If Mentor is sold, it will be a short term profit-making step only in
the interests of Icahn and his cohorts. EDA users will be a big time
loosers as the ecosystem will change.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
The activist investors think that they can reduce costs through a merger.
How many times have we heard that before? Cost savings in mergers never
pan out to what they are billed to be.
Also, reducing competition will not be good for the industry or the users.
It will impede innovation and reduce quality of support. Can you imagine
if we had a Microsoft style monopoly in EDA? Users like to have tool
choices; they don't want to be "locked in" to any one vendor's tools.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
There should be competition in market.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
This is tricky since there's more than one answer.
The vendors would be better off if there were only 2 of them. Less
competition, easier to carve up the market and keep prices high.
The users are better off in the current competitive situation. The
vendors are forced to sell at lower prices in order to compete.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Chopping up Mentor for short term investor gain won't help Mentor
customers get their products out the door any faster. Some of those
less profitable niche tools help customers do their job.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Sometimes a less profitable product line is required since the
competation is in an end-to-end flow rather than a point tool.
Also I am curious why there is no "D. Mentor should be merged with
Magma." can't that be a reasonable option if Mentor's managements
indeed get replaced?
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Could have gone with B, but not all low performers should be sold off.
Some help fill the donut hole.
- [ An Anon Mentor Employee ]
Join
Index
Next->Item
|
|
