Silicon Valley Nation
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TanjB
Read the Forbes definition again. It describes a filter to select companies ...
lcovey
I once had an EDA executive tell me that talking about innovation in the EDA and ...
Silicon Valley Nation: Forbes innovation list disses electronics
Brian Fuller
10/9/2012 3:11 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO--If you're the world's most technologically advanced
industry, dancing at the edge of magic and inventing the future day
in and day out, Forbes could care less.
The financial publication is out with its second annual Top 100 Most Innovative Companies list. How many semiconductor companies made the list?
Two. ARM (No. 10) and Altera (No. 100).
[Get a 10% discount on ARM TechCon 2012 conference passes by using promo code EDIT. Click here to learn about the show and register.]
How many electronics companies from our world made it? Two: Agilent (No. 82) and Danaher (No. 99).
Out of 100 companies.
Did they only get to "D" in the alphabet?
Pull ARM out of the mix, and companies that make expensive lattes, chocolate, soap, beer and breakfast for little kids fared better than companies in our world. Really? Want to change your innovation culture? Look to Cheerios and Lucky Charms for insight and grab a Bud while you're at it!
The future ferments on engineering benches and in fabs that produce things so precise, so small you need multimillion-dollar microscopes to see them. The industry continually scrapes the physics wall in the race to tomorrow and figures out ways to dart around Moore's Law. And yet just a handful are considered innovative. (Insert gnashing of teeth, renting of garments here).
Turns out, the Forbes methodology skews heavily toward finance and doesn't take into consideration non-public companies:
Taking nothing away from the excellent work the executive teams and employees at ARM, Altera, Agilent and Danaher have done over the past decade: No Intel? No TSMC? (Not to mention the industry's crucial enablers, Synopsys, Mentor and Cadence)? No IBM?
Sigh. What are you gonna do? Ours is an industry that, like Willie Mays, made difficult things look easy, and it gets no respect.
Life ain't fair.
Related stories:
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Silicon Valley Nation: EV design chain and pollution
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Yoshida in China: $400 iPhones and skewed trade stats
Photo gallery: Eye on innovations at ISSCC
Forbes says Altera is among world's 100 most innovative companies
The financial publication is out with its second annual Top 100 Most Innovative Companies list. How many semiconductor companies made the list?
Two. ARM (No. 10) and Altera (No. 100).
[Get a 10% discount on ARM TechCon 2012 conference passes by using promo code EDIT. Click here to learn about the show and register.]
How many electronics companies from our world made it? Two: Agilent (No. 82) and Danaher (No. 99).
Out of 100 companies.
Did they only get to "D" in the alphabet?
Pull ARM out of the mix, and companies that make expensive lattes, chocolate, soap, beer and breakfast for little kids fared better than companies in our world. Really? Want to change your innovation culture? Look to Cheerios and Lucky Charms for insight and grab a Bud while you're at it!
The future ferments on engineering benches and in fabs that produce things so precise, so small you need multimillion-dollar microscopes to see them. The industry continually scrapes the physics wall in the race to tomorrow and figures out ways to dart around Moore's Law. And yet just a handful are considered innovative. (Insert gnashing of teeth, renting of garments here).
Turns out, the Forbes methodology skews heavily toward finance and doesn't take into consideration non-public companies:
We use something called the Innovation Premium to compile our list. It is calculated first by projecting a company’s income (cash flows, in this case) from existing businesses, plus anticipated growth from those businesses, and look at the net present value (NPV) of those cash flows. We compare the NPV of cash flows from existing businesses with a current market capitalization: Companies with a current market cap above the NPV of cash flows have an innovation premium built into their stock.Of course a true innovation index is essentially impossible calculate because the word itself and its metrics are spongy, but c'mon, guys, how about some serious love?
Taking nothing away from the excellent work the executive teams and employees at ARM, Altera, Agilent and Danaher have done over the past decade: No Intel? No TSMC? (Not to mention the industry's crucial enablers, Synopsys, Mentor and Cadence)? No IBM?
Sigh. What are you gonna do? Ours is an industry that, like Willie Mays, made difficult things look easy, and it gets no respect.
Life ain't fair.
Related stories:
TSMC says 20 nm, 3-D are ready for design
Silicon Valley Nation: EV design chain and pollution
Yoshida in China: Does Apple need China Mobile?
Yoshida in China: $400 iPhones and skewed trade stats
Photo gallery: Eye on innovations at ISSCC
Forbes says Altera is among world's 100 most innovative companies
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chipmonk
10/10/2012 10:41 AM EDT
" Ours is an industry that, like Willie Mays, made difficult things look easy, and it gets no respect. "
So true !
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iniewski
10/10/2012 11:56 AM EDT
The list so silly...I am glad I stopped reading Forbes long time ago
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lcovey
10/10/2012 12:06 PM EDT
I once had an EDA executive tell me that talking about innovation in the EDA and semiconductor industry is like talking about putting another layer of chrome on a crescent wrench. That's what excites EE's. Not the rest of the world, so much.
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TanjB
10/11/2012 1:32 PM EDT
Read the Forbes definition again. It describes a filter to select companies where the market expects them to make money tomorrow from lines of business they do not have today.
Since, for example, Intel makes its money from chips today, and will make money from chips tomorrow, in their terms its business model is not innovating. Forbes thinks they are a one trick pony, and more to the point since they are using market data, the market thinks Intel is a one trick pony.
It has nothing at all to do with how magical the pony is. The fact that Intel needs to find a new unicorn every year and teach it to be a pony is, from Forbes' point of view, repetition of the same old business.
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