If you look at the world from a Cadence point of view, a little over 6 weeks
before DAC 2006, life was looking good.  Their biggest rival, Synopsys, had
just got a nastygram from the IRS for $476 million in back taxes for some
sort of issue involving transfer pricing transactions between Synopsys and
its Irish subsidiary.  Sweet!


Then looking at the timeline going into DAC (in terms of days pre-DAC):

    DAC -39 -- I break the story that Cadence is setting up to poach the
               DAC floor show customers in Wiretap 060615.  Hmmm...

    DAC -38 -- The Athena CEO warns "Cadence is being a bad gorilla"
               in Wiretap 060616.  OK, If you say so....


Then the DAC week itself from a Cadence point of view:

  DAC Weds. -- Cadence posts a good 2nd quarter, 12% revenue growth.
               Wall Street is happy and Fister looks good.  Excellent!

 DAC Thurs. -- I break the story about Cadence not chosing a booth
               to exhibit in at next year's DAC in Wiretap 060727.


Then the post-DAC timeline (in terms of days after DAC) from a Cadence
point of view:

     DAC +5 -- An anon user writes about Cadence was "disrespectful"
               at DAC in Wiretap 060802.  OK...

     DAC +6 -- Gabe Moretti writes about "signs of intelligent life"
               missing at Cadence in Wiretap 060803.  Hmmmm...

     DAC +7 -- Gary Smith warns of personnel problems and arrogance
               at Cadence in Wiretap 060804.  Not good.

    DAC +10 -- Mike Santarini breaks that the Cadence Precision Router
               (CPR) was really 1/2 developed at IBM.  (Damn!)  Cadence
               Corporate Marketing had tried to omit this fact to give
               the false impression "their" new Space-based Virtuoso
               replacement was 100% Cadence homegrown.  Mike Fister's
               failed hope was to give Wall Street the impression that,
               yes, Cadence R&D can create sellable new tools on its own
               without having to acquire them.  See Wiretap 060807.

    DAC +14 -- The IRS says it wants another $324 million from Cadence
               for its 2000 through 2002 taxes.  This is on top of the
               pending dispute with the IRS over $124 million for 1997
               through 1999 for transfers involving its Irish Cadence
               subsidiary.  This new $324 million is in addition to the
               Irish problem that whacked Synopsys earlier.  Ouch!

    DAC +17 -- Last November, Mike Fister & Co. ballyhooed in the press
               (and especially for Wall Street) the Cadence-Freescale
               deal where they tried to give the false impression that
               EDA users were consolidating their purchases instead of
               buying the best point tools -- thus giving an advantage
               to the pseudo we-have-a-complete-flow EDA suppliers like
               Cadence, Synopsys, and Magma.  Today Dylan McGrath
               shattered this Cadence Corporate Marketing myth with the
               Mentor-Freescale story where Freescale buys all sorts of
               DFT, DFM, Calibre, and RET tools from Mentor.  D'oh!

    DAC +18 -- Dylan McGrath also catches Cadence booting out Synopsys,
               Mentor, and Magma from attending their CDN Live "user"
               group.  As a common courtesy to the EDA users, the Big 4
               have always allowed their rivals into their respective
               Users Groups.  The reality is that *all* of the world's
               chip designers use tools from at least 3 out of the 4 big
               EDA suppliers.  Apparently, Mike Fister wants CDN Live to
               stop being a real users group & more of a sales roadshow
               infomercial where the users are pitched carefully crafted
               Cadence-only "success stories" -- just like what Intel
               does at the Intel Developer Forum.  "Opteron?  Athlon?
               Huh?  Never heard of them.  What's that?  AMD?  Are you
               sure you're talking about microprocessors?"

    DAC +19 -- Archrival Synopsys posts a 3rd quarter which tops analyst
               expectations and ups its guidance.  (Crap!)


In all that time after DAC, the only good news that Cadence has seen is that
"its" Cadence Precision Router (CPR) was the #1 pick in my Best of DAC 06
videos in Wiretap 060810 -- you know, that Space-based Virtuoso replacement
which they co-developed with IBM, but officially didn't develop with IBM?

I'm not always a superstitious man, but since all this dark news began only
*after* Cadence started messing with its DAC commitment, I can't help but
wonder: Did the DAC Executive Committee put a voodoo curse on Cadence?  :)