( DAC 99 Item 19 ) ----------------------------------------------- [6/25/99]
UH-OH, THE PEASANTS ARE REBELLING! In the 5 weeks before DAC'99, ESNUG
had an on-going thread where disgusted Avant! customers openly complained
about the 'new' Avant! repricing strategy for interHDL's Verilint tool.
Avant! must have been listening because, well, see for yourself.
"Somewhere in there InterHDL figured out each customer only needed one
copy because the tool is just a syntax checker and ran pretty fast.
To help their sales they put in a 27 minute timer that allowed access
to only one user for that time. This was the first way they screwed
their customers. We only bought one anyway - so there!
Now Avant! has purchased InterHDL & sent a fax to all the Verilint
customers offering to "upgrade" the license to flexlm and remove the
27 minute timer -- all for only $10K and $7K in annual maintenance.
This for a tool that originaly cost less than $10K. That's screw
number 2. If you want to buy the tool new from Avant! the list is
$47K!!! Screw 3. Sheesh, that's more than a verilog license. Who
are they kidding? This thing is a SYNTAX checker."
- [ I Am Sparticus ] from ESNUG 319 five weeks before DAC.
"It looks to me like their strategy is to move their Verilint customer
base to their Nova-Explore-RTL product. This product requires you to
run interactively in a multi-window GUI type environment. Just like
every other EDA vendor, they want to have the Holy Grail of EDA. That
is, a tool that a designer is going to sit in all day long while doing
code development and debug. I don't think Nova-Explore-RTL is it.
- Tom Loftus of Hughes in ESNUG 321 three weeks before DAC
"I just saw an ad for the Proton Rule Checker -- a lint-like tool from
ASC, Inc. ( http://www.ascinc.com ), and was wondering if anyone else
had used it and what they thought of it in comparison to Verilint. It
looks like it's time for capitalism to fix this little problem."
- Billy Vitro of Cisco in ESNUG 322 one week before DAC
"EDA Mall introduces a new concept, Session-Based Licensing. With
either a Credit Card (Available Now!) or a Purchase Order Account,
you can purchase the number of Verilint or VHDLlint licenses you need,
when you need them." ( http://www.interhdl.com )
- from http://www.edamall.com , the new Avant! website selling
Verilint at $10 per use, announced at DAC.
"Jail?!? Jail's too good for Gerry Hsu! Oh, no! And I just said
this in front of a bunch of press people!"
- a quote attributed to Penny Herscher, the CEO of Simplex, by
a number of reporters in the DAC Press Room. Gerry Hsu is the
CEO of Avant! and the EDA community widely believes he stole
Cadence EDA source code to found Avant!.
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