Cooley’s “EDA Psychic Network” and Synopsys vs. Magma settlement

I’m sure glad I checked my email late last night and discovered Synopsys and Magma settled all their pending litigation. It was a late night but I managed to crank out a story relatively shortly after the companies issued the press release.

Of course because the release was issued late last night, Synopsys and Magma didn’t have spokesman available until today. (I generally loath stories written soley from press releases but had no choice in this case). So today I had very brief conversations with the general council for both Synopsys and Magma.

Turns out neither company is revealing much more about the agreement than what is contained in the press release but I did find out that none of the Magma tools are affected by the settlement. Synopsys General Council Brian Cabrera says the only technology-related part of the settlement allows for Synopsys and Magma to cross license certain patents.

Also, I have to give a shout out to John Cooley for his predictions related to the outcome of the suit. Cooley a couple of weeks ago predicted the case would settle and that Magma would have to pay $20 million to Synopsys. Turns out Magma only had to pay Synopsys $12.5 million, which is really a slap on wrist considering previous EDA lawsuits, albeit much more grievous lawsuits, ended with executives surrendering their company for little or no profit or jail time for executives.

I also saw in the wee small hours of the morning, before the stock market opened, that Cooley predicted Magma’s stock would jump 20%, while Synopsys’ stock wouldn’t move. It turns out Magma’s stock jumped up as high as 17% on Friday, March 30 (close, John), while Synopsys’ stayed relatively flat.

So I called John to see if he was going to start an analyst firm or the EDA Psychic Network and to let him gloat a bit. And he did, though with brief moments of humility: “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Good job, John–Wall Street and/or Dionne Warwick await your presence…but of course you already knew that.