Cadence and Mentor cluster****

So the big news in EDA is the failure of the hostile takeover of Mentor by Cadence.  Two things are worth discussing here.  Number one is that Cadence withdrew the offer, not unlike Microsoft withdrawing the bid for Yahoo.  When Cadence first looked at Mentor's numbers it looked pretty good.  Tight, yes, but good.  But after further study, deliberation and skinning the cat multiple ways for Mentor, they decided it wasn't worth it.  Second, Mentor originally said they were going to fight it tooth and nail, but when Cadence quit the field they said, "Wait, we didn't say ABSOLUTELY no." and are acting like spurned lovers.


What is notable here is we are talking about the number one (or two depending on what quarter) and three companies in an industry populated by hundreds of competitors who decided the business isn't worth going for a definite number one spot; that they can't see a market big enough to make a merged company profitable.

This is one of those amazing industries that believes its technology and products are so incredible that it doesn't need marketing to find customers and make sales.  Yet two industry giants can't find enough worth in each other to make it profitable.  Either this market REALLY sucks or it needs to stop letting the engineers run marketing.  

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