Warren Savage

McKenzie Mortensen

IPextreme’s Silicon Valley IP Users Conference 2012 edition has become a must-attend event for IP vendors and users, much more than a private tradeshow for IPextreme and its customers. I sat down with Warren Savage, IPextreme’s founder and CEO, and McKenzie Mortensen, the company’s mar com manager, to talk about the conference and its role in the chip design world.

Ed: So we’re talking about Constellations 2012…the program drew informative and opinionated speakers! Definitely more than a private tradeshow. When did Constellations begin? What were your goals?

Warren: I think it was a hit precisely because it was not intended to be just another private tradeshow. The world has changed a lot since the 1990s.

Ed: Hmmm…you mean for the chip design world? How has it changed?

Warren: Well, I think it’s time that companies start evolving to better understand how to serve their customers in a way that is not hitting them over the head with sales pitches.

Ed: And that customer service attribute is one that vendors to chip designers have been notoriously lax about. Back in the late 1990s or early 2000s, I remember an analyst, it could have been Jennifer Jordan, wagging her finger at the EDA world on this count, while taking us to task for doing a bad job of selling the industry’s value to the public markets.

So how does the conference and your Constellations program change this?

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