BACKGROUND
This is the April 03, 2012 article for the EDACafe.com EDA Commentary. The article is entitled, “The EDA Industry Almanac – Nominal Q4 2011.”
Over the years since 2003, Henke Associates has regularly posted articles in IBSystems’ Newsletters EDACafe.com and MCADCafe.com. These postings included quarterly Commentaries, WEEKLIES, and Almanacs that dealt with high tech software vendors in the fields of Electronic Design Automation (EDA), Electronics Intellectual Property (Electronics IP), and in the companion fields of mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) and mechanical computer aided engineering & analysis (MCAE).
Familiar vendor names have included Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys and others in EDA; ARM Holdings, Rambus and others in Electronics IP; and ANSYS, Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, PTC and others in MCAD/MCAE. Past EDA, Electronics IP and MCAD/MCAE Commentaries tended to run daily for a full calendar quarter; and past EDA WEEKLIES ran daily for at least four weeks. Articles in the new EDA COMMENTARY category have yet to establish a pattern of active daily running time longevity. In any case, all articles remain accessible to readers in the IBSystems’ on-line archives indefinitely.
Beginning in 2011, the writer occasionally combined reports on EDA and on Electronics IP into single issues of EDA WEEKLY. Readers will recall for example the April 04, 2011 issue, entitled, “The EDA and the Electronics IP Almanac: Q4 2010.” The same EDA and Electronics IP combo also appeared on June 27, 2011 for Q1 2011 financials.
But as readers quickly observed in the August 22, 2011 EDA WEEKLY, the G5 Electronics IP financial results for Q2 2011 held the center stage alone, including the then-current gyrations of the worldwide economic environment. The same was true of the Q3 2011 and Q4 2011 G5 Electronics IP financial results posted November 14, 2011 and March 05, 2012, respectively.
Other Combinations
More rare have been occasions when one particular article appeared in both the EDACafe.com and MCADCafe.com newsletters, such as the article on ANSYS multi-physics of July 2010. This trend is likely to be repeated going forward as the fields of mechanical design automation & simulation merge more and more with electronics design & simulation.
Occasionally it will also become useful to combine the financial reports from EDA and MCAD/MCAE into single issues of EDA WEEKLY, when the stars line up schedule-wise. Such was the case here in September and December 2011.
Likewise, it is not unusual to separate them, and that is again the case in the current April 03, 2012 EDA COMMENTARY.
The April 03, 2012 EDA COMMENTARY
This issue of the EDA COMMENTARY, which is entitled, “The EDA Industry Almanac: Nominal Q4 2011,” reports on the nominal Q4 2011 financial results of the following EDA vendors:
Cadence San Jose. CA
Mentor Graphics Wilsonville, OR
SpringSoft, Inc. Hsinchu, Taiwan
Synopsys, Inc. Mountain View, CA
Selection History of Vendor Coverage Choices for EDA
For the quarterly EDA Industry Commentaries published in EDACafe.com starting in May 2003, Henke Associates originally chose nine (9) publicly-traded entities: Altium, Ansoft, Cadence, Magma, Mentor Graphics, Nassda, Synopsys, Synplicity and Verisity.
Subsequently, Verisity and Nassda were acquired by EDA vendors Cadence and Synopsys, respectively, and hence were dropped from independent coverage the quarterly EDA Commentaries. More recently, EDA vendor Synplicity was acquired by Synopsys, and EDA vendor Ansoft was acquired by MCAE vendor ANSYS. Consequently, both Synplicity and Ansoft no longer independently appeared in the EDA Industry reports. In May 2011, SpringSoft, Inc. replaced Altium Limited on our G5 EDA list.
The Synopsys acquisition of MAGMA, announced in late November 2011, was finally consummated in February 2012. Accordingly, MAGMA financials will subsumed by those of Synopsys, beginning with the report for nominal Q1 2012. A fifth EDA vendor to replace MAGMA for EDA Almanac reporting purposes has not been chosen.
Structure of the Presentation in this April 03, 2012 Issue
The EDA group of four vendors will be reported separately herein. The report will end with summary charts of revenues and earnings, preceded by individual financial summaries on each vendor in turn. Recent stock performances in the form of recent Yahoo charts will also be included. A relatively new feature added here for EDA are Google P&L graphs for the last five years for most vendors. The current status in the US and worldwide economies will also be mentioned when relevant using individual vendor stock charts, as time permits.
Indeed, the Q3 2011 financial results posted here in early December and their quarterly Q2 2011 predecessors in September 2011, were occurring in a period of unusual economic volatility that was initially precipitated by the debt ceiling debate in Washington DC and subsequent reduction of the USA’s credit rating by S&P from AAA to AA+.
The aforementioned continuing volatility in the economy was visible to anyone looking at the stock markets’ 2011 performances through, say, November 14, 2011.
Below is a graph of the six months of the NASDAQ Composite leading up to November 14. Please note: (a) the relative stability of the Composite curve at just above the 2800 level for the initial months shown till late July 2011; (b) the steep plunge to below 2400 by mid-August 2011; (c) the relatively wild oscillations from mid-August 2011 through mid-November 2011; and (d) never closing at 2800 or above during the entire reporting period after mid-August 2011.
52 week range = 2298.89 – 2887.75
Indeed, it was not until January 25, 2012 that the NASDAQ Composite finally closed above 2800 again, rising at an average slope of over 41 points per week for the four weeks between January 20 and February 17, as the US economy began to show consistent improvement (see below):
52 week range = 2,298.89 - 2,962.78
For the period between December 26, 2011 and February 16, 2012, the NASDAQ Composite index grew from 2590 to 2960 or 370 points in 33 trading days, averaging about 11 points gain every day the market was open.
Since late December 2011, the NASDAQ Composite has stabilized and risen at a powerful upward slope, flirting with 3090.08 on March 21, 2012, closing at 3067.92 on March 23, 2012, having just closed at a high of 3078.32 on March 19, 2012:
52 week Range: 2,298.89 - 3,090.08
What’s the NASDAQ done over the past week while this EDA MAGAZINE article was being prepared for posting? Just proceeded to grow some more to a peak of 3134.17 before settling in to close Friday at 3091.57.
52 week Range: 2,298.89 - 3,134.17
Enjoy the rest of this article!