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