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probably take a few copies, and then
maybe lots later. No salesperson
wanted to risk messing up a multi-
million dollar deal for a few hundred
thousand dollars on a product they
knew little about. While there were
some sales, the sales goals were
missed by a lot.
Another Cadence example was back
in the same era. We had developed a
lot of formal verification technology
at the Cadence Berkeley Labs. This
was then transferred to Cadence
proper and productized under then
name "Heck". This was not a good
way to work anyway - you can only
really move technology in people's
heads - but that's a topic for
another day. I have no idea if the
technology was any good; in that
era, formal verification was a niche
market and very hard to use. But
again, we never found out, since
the sales team refused to sell it,
and after about a year it was quietly
dropped.
Hunters and Farmers
This is one reason that back in that
era when you could sell a point tool
without needing it to be completely
integrated across the entire flow,
startups could sell products. Their
sales people were hunters, finding
the early adopters to get the product
across the chasm, as opposed to the
sales forces of the big companies
who were farmers, working the
fields of the big customers.
So the strategy of the ecosystem
was to develop new technology
in startups. They would get the
product moving in the channel,
then the big companies would buy
the successful companies. Then
the farmers would move in. If the
big companies developed internal
focused on getting it open, and
within 24 hours - without even a
contract in place (thus breaking
all the rules for contracting public
works) - a demolition company was
getting rid of the old bridge. The
new one opened about 30 days
later. So it is possible if what is
important is delivering to the public,
rather than patronage.
And it wasn't always this way.
Although the new span of the Bay
Bridge only opened in 2014-25
years after the 1989 earthquake
that showed up the problems - the
original Bay Bridge was built in 3
years. We just don't seem to be
able to do that anymore.
New EDA Point Tools
Things have changed a bit in the
last few years in EDA, which I'll get
to later, but it used to be extremely
difficult to introduce a new product
into the channel because the
salespeople knew that going first
was a recipe for problems. The
product was immature, and the
salesperson and associated AE
team would have to spend time
addressing them. Everyone sat on
their hands, waiting for others to go
first so that when the product was
mature, they could rush in. Nobody
wanted to be the forlorn hope; the
rewards were not big enough.
This was brought home to me after
Cadence acquired Ambit in the late
1990s (I was VP Engineering). We
had a synthesis product (amusingly
named BuildGates), and Cadence
had recently canceled their own
internal development on Synergy. It
was important that the product be
sold aggressively to justify the high
purchase price (nearly $300M if I
remember right). But the salesforce
would not. The Cadence salesforce
was accustomed to closing deals
on the basis of trying to get the
entire budget except for synthesis.
Very few customers (Philips was
the only one) were going to make
a wholesale switch, but they would
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