Prix Fixe vs. A La Carte

The most intriguing aspect of Xilinx’s new ISE Design Suite 11.1 may not be the speeds and feeds, or the specific Intellectual Property blocks offered, but the decision to offer subsets of design libraries in specific domains, such as DSP, embedded, and system.  It seems as though Xilinx has identified the correct vertical markets for these particular suites, and the pricing for its design tools is certainly attractive.

If Xilinx sought to attract new users through vertical-market bundling, there are certainly several analogous markets to which the company can point.  The obvious example is cable-TV and telco use of bundled voice, video, and data services.  Is there any consumer out there that still orders specific services from a service provider using a common menu?  Perhaps since the recession started, carriers are more likely to offer specific subsets of "gold" or "platinum" packages merely for customer retention, but in most cases, bundles are the only way to buy.

If we re-check the FPGA EDA market a year or two from now, we may find that bundles are the only way to acquire new suites.  Of course, particular suites may have to be added as new types of vertical markets emerge.  But FPGA vendors, beginning with Xilinx and its new ISE, will have observe the customer base carefully to determine new ways to add a single library element.  For example, if a designer desires a specific high-performance DSP block but does not have the DSP suite, can a single a la carte menu item be added to that suite?  Or does the designer need to migrate up to the System suite?  I’d be interested in hearing readers’ views as to the effectiveness of bundling EDA tools - particularly, as in Xilinx’s case, when the vertical bundle is tied to the Targeted Design Platform for hardware development.