> I got confirmation that Cadence had NOT selected any foor space whatsoever
> at the Wednesday DAC Space Selection Meeting.  Given the recent history of
> Cadence management trying to ever slowly pull customers away from the open
> DAC environment and into a more marketing-controlled Cadence-only offsite
> setting (a la the Intel Developer Forum that Mike Fister & Co. is so at
> home with) it's uncertain if this signals a policy where Cadence employees
> will be slowly pulling out of the DAC volunteer and committee positions
> they currently hold to instead focus on the "CDN Live" conferences which
> Cadence Marketing heavily promotes.
>
>     - from http://www.deepchip.com/wiretap/060727.html


From: Gary Smith <gary.smith=user domain=gartner spot gone>

Hi, John,

Cadence pulling out of DAC was a hot topic in the press room.  The comment
was made that it looks like they're pulling out of the design community.
My reply is that one unintended consequence is that it'll cause personnel
problems for Cadence.

People like to belong to a community.  There are approximately 6,000 EDA
developers worldwide; they all come from one pool.  It's not like there's
thousands of new PhDs rushing into EDA every year.  Instead it's a tight
knit community where everyone knows everyone from the first day that they
start their EDA-related Master's thesis.  Regardless of what EDA company
they currently work at, once a year most of the EDA developers meet up at
DAC in an impromptu "family reunion" where they talk about what they've
been working on with their old friends.  If Cadence makes it such that you
have to leave the DAC community to work there, that raises the bar for
entry into Cadence.  Most people won't want to do this.

As I told Richard Goering earlier this week in an interview, the number one
cause of the demise of technology companies is arrogance; I've watched
companies suffer from this my entire career.  It happened at Wang, TRW Semi,
Shockley Semi, Transitron, IBM, SGI, Ford, GM, Enron, Global Crossing, CBS,
NBC, ABC, countless Internet start-ups, and currently AOL.

Apple came close to dying from arrogance until they created the iPod.  The
way Andy Grove saved Intel was by introducing paranoia to counter their
arrogance.  I'm not recommending Cadence become paranoid, nor that they
should obsess on creating new market products, but that they must do
something to counter arrogance.  Pushing away the community which keeps you
alive is not a good idea for Cadence.

    - Gary Smith
      Gartner Dataquest                          San Jose, CA