I have been watching the Tour De France cycling race and it reminds me a lot about DAC. There is the mad sprint in the last weeks before the show to get the customer input and marketing ready. There is the massing of the exhibitors on Sunday with the EDAC and Gary Smith kick-off events. The well-known players are back this year, but the up and coming competitors will be on Smith’s and Cooley “Must See” lists. Meetings are held to drive the main pack, the peloton, into a new direction or pace. Announcements are made to pull away from the crowd and get the buzz leadership. And finally on Thursday, the last stage, we are tired but fulfilled, knowing for another year we have made a difference for designers world-wide.

If you want to step back in time, you can check out the EDACafe 2008 DAC Videos. EDACafe will, of course have video interviews at the 2009 event. You can always email me graham@edacafe.com to find out more.

+Graham

P.S.  Who will take the “yellow jersery” and for how long?

I just heard this week that the Cadence CDNLive! customer event normally held at the San Jose Convention Center has been changed into a virtual event with just webinars.  The reasons according to Cadence are that the current global financial environment is impacting everyone in the electronics industry, fewer resources are available to dedicate to critical projects, and travel budgets are limited.

What will the virtual event be like? Cadence says these webinars will be an opportunity for users to share their work and present their papers to an even larger audience—and a wider range of their peers—than what was anticipated at the face-to-face conference.  For those customers that want to rub elbows with Cadence staff, the San Francisco Design Automation Conference in July is offered as a substitute event. The virtual CDNLive !will take place on some date in October.  The other CDNLive! events in Japan, Taiwan, Israel, and India will proceed as planned.

Last years event was well attended.   You can see the photo gallery on EDACafe at CDLive! 2008 in San Jose, CA.

If you haven’t met Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Cadence, a video interview of Lip-Bu taken at the European CDNLive event is now available.  He discusses what Cadence’s focus will be and the stock price he is shooting for.  You can see it at Lip-Bu Tan CDNLive! interview.

I am wondering what the reaction will be to going virtual.   Will this please customers?   Will there be more attendees as Cadence claims?   Let me know your thoughts.

+Graham