( DVcon 07 Item 1 ) --------------------------------------------- [ 04/24/07 ]
Subject: Mindshare vs. Marketshare
Q: How was the Verification Census data gathered?
A: The Verification Census survey was sent out on March 22nd and again on
April 10th, 2007 to the 25,000 member ESNUG mailing list. A total of
818 users responded back to the complex 12 question survey, generating
12 x 818 = ~9,816 detailed answers I had to personally add up to get
the stats in this census. (Ugh!)
Q: What does the Verification Census measure?
A: This census is measuring what users actually *use* for verification EDA
tools. It's measuring the "mindshare" of each specific EDA tool.
Q: Isn't that the same as "marketshare" data from EDAC or the old Dataquest?
A: Nope. Marketshare numbers measure the total dollars that EDA *vendors*
individually report as their sales for a specific EDA tool. For example
Dataquest FY 2002 ATPG Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys TetraMAX : ############# $10.6 (45%)
Mentor FastScan : ############## $11.3 (48%)
others : ## $1.7 (7%)
Notice that marketshare numbers are always in sales dollars. Here
Synopsys reported in 2002 to Dataquest it had $10.6 million in TetraMAX
sales, Mentor reported $11.3 million in FastScan sales, and the others
reported $1.7 million in ATPG sales.
Marketshare percentages are always in terms of a specific tool's piece of
total sales pie. Marketshare percentages always add up to 100%.
All marketshare data comes directly from the few EDA *vendors*, not from
the hundreds of EDA *users*.
In contrast, below is an example of MINDshare numbers:
2004 - "What do you think of assertion languages and assertion
libraries such as SVA, PSL, OVL, 0-In CheckerWare?"
don't use : ############################################### 47%
IBM Sugar/PSL : ################################## 34%
0-In CheckerWare : ################## 18%
System Verilog SVA : ####### 7%
Synopsys Vera OVA : ####### 7%
Verplex OVL : ################# 17%
Mindshare numbers are always percentages. Mindshare does not measure
sales nor even the specific licenses engineers have. Mindshare only
measures what engineers report that they are *actually* using now. In
this example, if you had 100 engineers in a room and asked them what
assertions they're using: 47 would say "I don't use any assertions",
34 would say "PSL", 18 would say "0-in", 7 would say "SVA", etc...
All mindshare data comes directly from hundreds of EDA *users*, not from
the few EDA *vendors*.
Q: Hey! These "mindshare" numbers add up to more than 100%! What gives?
A: That's because because people often use more than one approach for the
same problem. ("We use both PSL and OVL assertions.") This means
mindshare numbers almost always add up to *more* than 100%.
Q: Is this a scientific survey?
A: Don't be fooled by this question. Cadence/Synopsys/Mentor/Magma all use
internal surveys with only 90 to 150 respondants to make major business
decisions. (Many times all the EDA vendors really care about is what
their Big Money customers say.) Claiming this Verification Census with
its 818 responses is "not scientific" is just EDA vendor FUD designed to
discredit some part of the census their current marketing disagrees with.
Hypocritically, these very same EDA marketing people will also gladly
tout and talk up any part of this census which happens to agree with
their current Corporate Marketing agenda.
Do NOT be fooled. Their jobs are all about gathering and promoting data
that supports their Corporate Marketing agenda -- plus disparaging and
suppressing any data which goes against their Corporate Marketing agenda.
They are NOT about the search for the truth in any way, shape, or form.
It's all about wooing customers over to buy THEIR tools, or to at least
stop customers from buying their competitor's tools. At the end of every
business day, Mike/Aart/Wally/Rajeev asks his each of Marketing yes-men:
"OK, so tell me again, exactly how have you increased my sales lately?"
This census is a user-driven attempt to get a single complete, unedited,
uncooked snapshot of where the entire verification market currently is;
free of any EDA company's Corporate Marketing agenda.
Q: Are you saying this census is completely unbiased?
A: Not hardly. This census is very heavily skewed towards ASIC and SoC
designers plus their associated verification engineers. Some of the high
end FPGA guys and the backend DFM nerds are in this mix, too. What's
blaringly absent from my audience are the PCB board folks and the cheap
seats who are burning tiny 22V10's with free software.
"Interesting. I just bought a Mac to help me design the next Cray."
- Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when he was told that Apple bought
a Cray supercomputer to help design the next Mac.
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