Category Archives: sales

Magma: getting products into the channel

I met Rajeev Madhavan, CEO of Magma, last week. We talked about a number of things but focused on one issue I’ve talked about before. Large EDA companies are capable of developing new technology—they have plenty of smart engineers, after … Continue reading

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Altium: EDA Oz-style

One theme of this blog is that IC EDA is increasingly inspecting its own navel while the bulk of design is going on in the PCB and FPGA worlds (not to mention software). One company that is focused on this … Continue reading

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Hunters and farmers: EDA salesforces

I wrote recently about mergers in the EDA space, mainly from the point of view of engineering which tends to end up being double booked keeping the existing standalone business going while at the same time integrating the technology into … Continue reading

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Application engineers

Application engineers are the unsung heroes of EDA. They have to blend the technical skills of designers with the interpersonal skills of salespeople. Most AEs start out as design engineers (or software engineers for the embedded market). But not all … Continue reading

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Your comp plan is showing

I talked recently about setting up separate channels and when it made sense to do it, and about some aspects of channel conflict. One area where separate channels are usually required is when a business is global. Most EDA products, … Continue reading

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Channel choices

Should a separate product be sold through a separate channel? If a new product is pretty much more of the same then the answer is obviously “no.” If the new product is disruptive, sold to a different customer base, or … Continue reading

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EDA startups: channel costs $6M

I’ve put together several business plans for EDA startups once the product is ready for market. One question is always how much money needs to be raised. The answer always turns out to be about $6M. When you put together … Continue reading

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Semi equipment vs EDA

I had lunch with Lance Glasser a couple of weeks ago. He used to run about half of KLA-Tencor’s semiconductor equipment business (and I did some consulting for him back then). We got to discussing why EDA and semiconductor equipment … Continue reading

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He who goes first loses

Earlier we had guest blog entries from Lauro Rizzatti of EVE and Chi-Ping Hsu of Cadence on whether innovation occurs in small or large companies. I’ve always maintained that the problem is a different one. I think it is clear … Continue reading

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Intel only needs one copy

It is obvious that companies make money in EDA only if they sell enough software. One rule of thumb is that EDA companies thrive if each salesperson brings in $2M per year, and they don’t if they only bring in … Continue reading

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