Grim day for EDA—Gartner closes down EDA analysts group

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I think the financial analysts at this point are more on target as to the health of the EDA industry. They look at the cold, hard facts and make conclusions from there. Seems like that's what the EDA providers want for now.

EDA Old Timer, thanks for your comments

Following up on toomuchgreentea, I don't think it was relevancy that was the downfall of Gary and team. It was the fact that they acted like a monopoly for something that was a "nice to have" not a "must have" product/service. They did what they wanted, charged what they wanted and acted like they wanted with impunity. Gary like the fact that startups paid homage to him to get him to say nice things about their products. That was NOT his job. Gary is not qualified to evaluate EDA products. He was supposed to analyze the market segments. But he put his personal agenda(s) above his duty as an objective industry analyst. The combination of too high a price point and data that was not objective was why people stopped buying their product. To quote Proverbs: "Pride goeth before a fall". Gary and team got WAY too arrogant and they got what they deserved.

I'm somewhat in agreement with EDA Old Timer. Rather than EDA becoming irrelevant, the truth maybe closer to Gartner losing its relevancy. Seriously, how many are actually paying attention to what Gartner has to say these days?

Hi Mike! What I emeant by "not relevant" is that now without the only market research group left, peopl from outside EDA industry will have no knowledge of what this industry is about, how healthy it is, and whether it makes sense to invest in it. As you said, some market numbers are better than none, and without any number from an independent source for a $4B industry, we just do not look like for "real".

Spider captured it very well. Gary and company just didn't get it. And because they didn't have anyone else to compete against, they could say whatever they wanted which many time has been flat-out wrong. Gary has been proclaiming the virtues of ESL for 12+ years now. It still isn't here. DFM is bigger than ESL and has been around a lot less time. Because there was no one else to challenge him, he had the luxury of saying "it's coming, it's coming" year after year. It is too bad that there wasn't at least a 2nd analyst covering EDA because at least there would have been a chance of someone calling BS and get the rest of the world to realize that Gary and team were "average" at best. So that brings me to my 2nd issue with Gary and company. They lost the objectivity that market analysts need to have to be credible. It was no secret that Gary had his "favorite" companies that he liked to talk up. The idiotic, repetitive predictions are one thing, but being "more generous" when covering certain companies because of who he likes there or whether or not they buy his services is really juvenile. Does the EDA industry need analyst coverage? Absolutely. Is losing Gartner's coverage a loss for the industry? No. Why? Because so much of his data was compromised by his lack of objectivity, it was tainted goods. That is why no one was buying it anymore. Anyone who knew anything about EDA knew his data was worthless. Good bye and don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Hi folks, Jordan got back to me today. See the new blog entry: "iSuppli's new group NOT covering EDA Industry"

I'm not ignoring you flacksterRWC, I'm just waiting for Jordan to return my call...tick tock tick tock?heard any good jokes lately?...tick tock

I haven't seen a release but Jordan Selburn was quoted as saying: the service will maintain databases of design starts, design content and design infrastructure. The last two words indicates some coverage of tools. So your guess is as good as mine.

I heard this secondhand yesterday but I haven't seen the release and I haven't talked with anyone at iSupply. Is it really EDA coverage? Seems the two folks that mentioned it called it something like "design services or methodology coverage" rather than EDA Industry coverage. Is that just marketing speak for EDA Industry coverage? Someone send the release to me please: michael.santarini@reedbusiness.com Who is the analyst? That's the biggest factor. Good analysts need to have integrity, the ability to gather, put together and properly interpret the numbers. Foremost they can't be wishy washy industry cheerleaders. They need to be brutally honest.

So, Mike, now that iSuppli is going to be covering EDA, is that enough? Or should Gary keep shopping the team around or even start something new?

Hey Tom, what do you mean by "is EDA still relevant?"? Please explain.

I agree the industry will survive but it makes tracking the industry, especially the smaller players a bit more difficult, without a market analyst. One of the great things Gary's group put together was the annual EDA Landscape, which broke down the industry into tool categories and then listed the companies that play in each category. I don't know if the marketshare numbers were completely accurate or not but they were better than none at all. I don't think anyone ever took the numbers as 100 percent precise but a ballpark figure was better than nothing. There are always certain aspects of analyst presentations that folks think are not readily believable. For one, every analyst's trend foil inevitably ends in an upward swing because of course, in the end analysts need their markets to thrive not just survive to have a market to analyze and reports to sell. Another aspect that folks typically find very questionable is market analysts' forward predictions. I've always thought it would be interesting to have an analyst firm that tracks the accuracy of market analyst predictions and maybe even rate the analysts. That of course isn't all that practical because for example there are multiple analysts that track ASICs and each says the ASIC market is a different size because they each have a different idea of what actually is an ASIC. It's a good way for them to sidestep the accuracy issue. Financial analysts live and die by the accuracy of their predictions (and many other things). Market analysts seem to live and die by selling reports. That said in EDA there was just one analyst firm and whether accurate or not, it helped stir up discussions and pointed out trends in an industry that's struggling to get more lime light. Like I said, EDA needed more analysts--Zero analysts isn't good. But I agree the industry will survive. Not having Gary's group or another market analyst group will likely benefit the biggest vendors in the short term because most folks know the large vendors have broad portfolios and by default will first look at what they offer. Finding the other smaller players offering say a formal verification tool, will now require a bit more research for users. Gary's firm at least showed us most of the players in each tool category. Thanks for reading.

With all due respect, I don't find this very surprising. While Mr Smith was vocal on many issues, he was oft just plain wrong.... I am quite sure the EDA industry will survive. Business is business, and if the analysts weren't able to produce the output to pull their weight financially, well, nobody is sacred anymore.

It's a sad day for EDA industry. Is EDA still relevant?

Kind of typical, don't you think. EDA doesn't invest in in any kind of discussion outside of it's own little community. No wonder the customers are working on their own tools again instead of buying commercial offerings. Now because they don't want to hear reality in the form of objective analysis the illusion will be complete. Pay no attention the the man behind the curtain! EDA will rule the world. Cooley is right, show me to a life boat.