( DAC 01 Item 1 ) ---------------------------------------------- [ 7/31/01 ]
Subject: The DAC Numbers
A CRASHING ECONOMY: Most people in their DAC trip reports noted how the
attendance seemed down this year. The initial estimates given at DAC itself
was that attendance was down 15%. Now, after having time to finally compile
all the data, it turns out that 16,054 people went to DAC last year in New
Orleans and that only 14,081 people came to this year's DAC in Las Vegas.
That's a drop of 12%. But the real news was in the DAC demographics.
EDA Vendors:
DAC 2000 ############################################### 9,416
DAC 2001 ######################################## 7,969 (-15%)
EDA Buyers:
DAC 2000 #################### 3,934
DAC 2001 ############ 2,501 (-36%)
Academics/Press/Students:
DAC 2000 ##### 1,080
DAC 2001 ####### 1,310 (+21%)
Guests/Wives/Husbands/Others:
DAC 2000 ######## 1,624
DAC 2001 ############ 2,301 (+42%)
The EDA vendors sending 15% less people was surprising, but it's that 36%
drop in EDA buyers that shocked people. That's why the exhibit floor was
empty this year! And why the buyers didn't come was because in the months
immediately proceeding this DAC, there were layoff, *lots* layoffs:
% of company cut size of cut
---------------- -----------
3Com ############ -12% 1,400
National Semi ########## -10% 1,100
IDT ################## -18% 900
Intel ###### -6% 5,000
Cisco Systems ##### -5% 2,700
Compaq ############ -12% 8,500
Nortel ##################### -21% 30,000
Lucent ################## -18% 16,000
Dell ############# -13% 5,700
Motorola ########### -11% 16,000
TI ########### -11% 4,600
JDS Uniphase ###################################### -38% 8,000
STMicro #### -4% 1,500
PMC-Sierra ############# -13% 230
Conexant #################### -20% 1,500
EMC #### -4% 1,100
Ericsson ############ -12% 13,100
Philips ### -3% 7,000
Plus Adaptec, IBM, and Palm had layoffs with Broadcom, Infineon, Juniper,
Agilent, and HP were hinting at possible layoffs and Sun and LSI put their
companies on forced vacations around the same timeframe.
Simply put, you just don't ask your boss if you can go to *any* conference
(no matter how good it is) when he's busy putting together the list of
who's going to be laid off next month. (The laughable irony here is that
layoffs are, at best, an extremely temporary fix to a company's money
problems. The only stable way out of this fiscal purgatory is to *design*
products that are bigger, smaller, faster, cheaper, use-less-power, better
than ever before -- and that means using even more EDA tools!)
"Some of the DAC marketeers were complaining of scant attendance on the
main exhibit floor. I find many of their exhibits on the floor to be
devoid of substance, if not downright insulting."
- Richard Minnick of Aware
"The worst thing about DAC is the deterioration of the demos. Over the
years, PowerPoint is replacing EDA tools even in the suite demos.
Meanwhile, the booth demos are disappearing entirely. When I was in
EDA, we demonstrated the actual software, and customers still called
it vaporware. Now, they just draw pictures of how it's supposed to
work. What do we call this? Etherware?"
- John McGehee of Voom, Inc.
"Rubicad had an interesting entertainer who called on audience members
to pick a card and then through observing pulse, twitches and other
physical mannerisms on the volunteer, he could figure out what the
exact card was. The entertainer taunted Synopsys employees in
the adjacent booth who would watch his act, saying stuff like: "come
on over here and watch, after all, nobody's coming to your booth!"
- Cliff Cummings of Sunburst Designs
"It looked like the Avanti booth must have had a force field around
it. No one seemed to want to go near it.
- Jeff West of Silicon Logic Engineering, Inc.
"Just wanted to pass along my observations from DAC'2001. What I found
refreshing was that the "pride had returned to EDA" - after loosing it
for a couple years to the Dot Com mania. There were several startups
pitching their technologies, each trying to innovate in a niche space.
Collectively, I felt, they are headed in the right direction of solving
today's and tomorrow's EDA needs."
- Nagendra Srinivas Cherukupalli, Cypress Semiconductor
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