The real point I was trying to make is that the reason - the “real” reason, not the spin - for a hostile takeover is the only thing worth discussing. Is the aggressor company pursing a buyout strategy to improve it’s technical standing or market position? Or is the buyout bing used to divert attention from bad technical/business decisions of the past? Or poor market earnings. This is the angle that very few press-bloggers have examined. But it is the most crucial question to be examined. IHMO.

There is no personal animosity in the Cadence/Mentor dust-up. Consolidation hast to be done in the industry and each company has to review the pluses and minuses of each combination. Looking at which technologies complement and conflict is only one of the aspects. Another is stock price, another is installed base. Another is manpower and sales forces. And lets not forget that the overall intent of any consolidation is to create a efficient synergy, which is a fancy way of getting rid of deadwood in organizations.

This takeover may not happen, but a merger or buyout is going to happen in EDA very soon. We just have to decide to get used to it now or later.

And it is nothing personal.

You bring up an important point with Intergraph. Need to think about that one a bit. My suggest for a CAD buyout was due to the recent expansion of certain EDA companies into the chip packaging space (Apache buying Optimal, Cadence with SiP, etc). Chip packaging concerns are just stone’s through away from CAD, IMHO.

I can’t see why TSMC would want to burden itself with a design-tools company, particularly anyone with a lot of frond-end tools. I could see the argument if you were to uncouple DFM from the rest. But even then, it’s like going back to the old VLSI/LSI model pre-Compass.

A Catia/Matrix One deal is possible. That favours an acquisition of Mentor alone, not Cadentor as all the benefit between CAD and EDA lies in board and system design: chip design is an esoteric sideshow for them. But I’m not sure anyone is in a hurry to revisit the Intergraph situation. I guess as things such as plastic electronics come through, there will be a greater need for mixed mechanical/electronics design. But maybe a CAD company could add all that for a lot less money by buying Altium.

Regardless, I’d like to save some of tech journalism.

Nah. Makes too much sense. Would never happen.

If this goes through, then the Mentor support of industry trade shows goes away, leaving only Synopsys and Magma as the financial anchors. Since Synopsys only continues to attend because Mentor is there, they will bow out and Magma will follow. Since everyone else in the industry follows whatever Cadence, Mentor, Synopsys and Magma do, you will be able to hold DAC in a hotel ball room.

Cadence will be sold in a private equity deal and then absorbed by a large company (Peggy’s TSMC prophesy may have been right) Fister will get a big payday and fly off to his private home in Idaho. 80 percent of the private EDA companies will be out of business in 10 years and Synopsys and Magma will be bought by IDMs and large fabless companies.

This might not be a bad thing for the press. As semi’s gather design technology and expertise, they can use that as a bolster for the stock price and gain systems developers as customers. Those semi’s will see marketing as an important tool and will start advertising again. Publications that have made the switch to multiple outlets for information will gain more and more revenue. Tech journalism will be saved.

Forever the optimist, aren’t I?

Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but may portent things to come in the EDA community.

BTW: You have a great blog. Keep it up!

Still, for those of us in this transition period (between print vs online, in-depth vs low-depth (shallow) reporting, text vs video), answering the basic questions of what constitutes a good blog, among other things, is crucial. The burden of sucessfully bringing meaningful content, i.e., passing on the standard, to the new media state is ours.