> You and Santarini reported rumor and innuendo from people who had the
> same prejudices you held.  The story was highly entertaining and was
> probably a lot of fun to write.  But you were wrong to leap into the
> fray until you really knew what was going on.  The apology is not due
> to the Cadence engineers, but to your readers who deserve better.
>
>     - Lou Covey
>       VitalCom Public Relations                  Redwood City, CA


From: Lou Covey <lou=user domain=vitalcompr hot bomb>

Hi, John,

After having spoke with Mike Santarini, I want to change my mind about the
letter I wrote yesterday.  In our conversation he walked me through the
process of how he got his story regarding Cadence and IBM.

Cadence announced Precision in June and claimed they had done all the work
on it.  There was no mention of IBM in the first CPR press release.  At DAC,
Santarini was chatting with 5 or 6 IBMers and asked what they were working
on.  They mentioned several projects, one of which was the CPR project, and
they claimed to have done up to 50% the work.  That much was reported in
Santarini's blog.

What Santarini didn't report was the follow up that posting.  An IBM rep
came to him later (after he reported the 50% number) and said they were
misrepresented in the posting, but would not say what level of input they
really had on CPR.

Santarini then met with some of Cadence's Catena team and Cadence Marketing.
In that meeting one Cadence employee claimed "99.9 percent" of the work was
done by Cadence, but the other Cadence employees there squirmed and said
they would not be comfortable with that statement.

The bottom line is that Cadence probably didn't lie about their level of
involvement in developing Precision, but they certainly did not tell truth.
It is definite that Catena did not develop the tool without significant
help from IBM.

As far as spin goes, this is definitely a case of Cadence playing fast and
loose with reality.  Santarini has an issue with the lack of innovation in
EDA, especially at the top of the food chain, but he did not let this
opinion color his reporting.  In fact, I wish Santarini had continued the
story in his blog of what he told me yesterday.

As far as you go, John, I admire the fact you feel, in fairness, that you
should actually ferret out the truth of Cadence's involvement after gigging
the Cadence Catena team over this.  But the fact is that Cadence Marketing
is the one who made this water murky.  Their spin (and spin it truly is) has
done a disservice to the industry that desperately needs real innovation,
not perceived innovation.  As a PR professional, this really galls me.  I
was hoping Cadence had pulled off something important.  Now I don't know.

    - Lou Covey
      VitalCom Public Relations                  Redwood City, CA


 Editor's Note: This follow-up letter wowed me.  Do you know how rare it is
 for a PR person to publically say what they really think about a Marketing
 department's actions is?  Kiss any Cadence contract goodbye!  Wow.  - John

         ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----   ----

From: Mike Santarini <michael.santarini=user domain=reedbusiness got calm>

Hey John,

Lou got one thing wrong here in his reply.  An IBM rep never came up to me,
it was a Cadence rep.  I haven't heard dirt from IBM since.

But certainly there is an error in my blog in that it indicates IBM did
over 50% of the tool.  I tried to get fancy with the language (that's never
served me well).  Anyway it should have been "up to 50%" -- that was IBM's
claim at the time.  That's the only thing that's out of whack with my
original blog.

Cadence certainly isn't getting an apology out of me -- they own me one.
The press release from Cadence I was briefed on didn't even mention IBM as
a customer or otherwise.  Read Goering's article on CPR.  Does it mention
IBM?  No.  Guess why?  IBM wasn't in the original version of the press
release Cadence sent to the press.

I asked Ted Vucurevich point blank during the press pre-briefing if it was
ENTIRELY a Cadence developed product.  He said it was.  Sad.  Their PR guy
two days before their release date in June sent me the final press release
and a note saying here's the final version, indicating the only change was
a "IBM customer quote."  I overlooked said quote, as did every other person
in the press.  It read like IBM did bug fixing, not co-development.

Cadence is getting too much mileage out of simply being sneaky.  I haven't
commented until now because I certainly don't want to encourage others to
withhold information from me and later find out about their information and
have to write about it.  Cadence got caught and it took them a month to
convince IBM to help them cover their asses.  It's sad that my alma mater,
EE Times, was more than willing to help perpetuate the spin...

    - Michael Santarini
      EDN Magazine                               San Jose, CA