M&A: Rumor dampens spirits over cocktails

It’s not often that the rumor hits the fan that Synopsys is buying EVE, it’s not often that you’re standing in a cocktail party at a tech conference in the South of France, and it’s not often that these two events happen simultaneously.

When the Synopsys/EVE rumor swept through the cocktail party in Sophia Antipolis on this first evening of the SAME Forum, not surprisingly a lot of people had opinions. This is not just a tech conference, after all, it’s a microelectronics conference with an emphasis on design; EDA is at the center of the conversation.

This is also Europe and at the moment EVE, headquartered in France, is the darling of the EDA ecosystem on the Continent. The company is doing very well, is felt to be holding its own in a series of lawsuits with Mentor Graphics, and is widely admired overall. Needless to say, the reaction over cocktails that EVE may go the way of SpringSoft and Magma was not one of jubilation. Just the opposite, in fact.

A lot of people told me, wishing to remain anonymous of course, that Synopsys is only buying EVE to address Intel’s demand that Synopsys get an emulator. Those same people worried that EVE will not be well cared for at Synopsys, that the EVE products and arc of history are not important to Synopsys because the biggest company in EDA is just biding its time until simulation can outpace emulation. Others told me that TI would be very, very unhappy with this development and would respond accordingly if the rumor turned out to be true.

Only one person said that if the acquisition actually happens, everything will work out. EVE will survive well enough under the Synopsys umbrella and this is just what an exit in EDA looks like these days: Founders get a payout and Synopsys grows ever bigger.

So it goes this evening here in the South of France. The shadow of Silicon Valley and the corporate vacuum at the epicenter of EDA continue to shake up the cocktails, and those who down them, on a balmy evening on the Cote d’Azur.

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Tags: Cote d'Azur, emulator, EVE, Intel, M&A, Magma, Mentor Graphics, SAME Forum, Sophia Antipolis, SpringSoft, Synopsys, TI

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