Recapping the "Entrepreneurial Engineer" posts from 2010

1/12/2011 6:56 PM EST

In my "Maiden Voyage" post Jul-30-2010 I said that I would focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in the broader electronic systems design ecosystem. I hoped to provide insights in the following areas (I have included columns written in 2010 in the category I believe that they fit in):

1. Perspective on technology innovation.
   • 10 quotes to help you bring order out of chaos at your company
2. Analysis of business strategy for emerging markets.
   • Seeking input on DAC's strategy
3. New models for global teams and multi-firm collaboration that are predicated on incessant collaboration among experts.
4. Perspective on the impact of communication and pervasive connectivity in creating new business models.
5. Insights from pioneering engineers on how new computing paradigms are enabling new models for how they invent.
   • Plunify launches SaaS platform that integrates FPGA design tools
6. Interviews with entrepreneurs sharing lessons learned from their successes and their setbacks.
   • Eric Deal bounces back from a startup shutdown to establish Cyclic Design
   • Docea Power successfully bootstraps as a new EDA player
   • Interview: Paul van Besouw, Oasys Design Systems

I plan to keep these six focus areas for 2011 as well but to write more frequently (at least in the first quarter). I welcome any suggestions for entrepreneurs I should interview. Two areas that I have yet to address in a post and would welcome additional perspective on (or better a willingness to be interviewed) are the global teams/incessant collaboration and startups using low cost pervasive connectivity to create new business models. In my DAC strategy post I suggested three transitions well underway affecting the electronic design process:

• The rise of global teams as the default vehicle for product design and development. Designs never sleep: continuous configuration management and design dashboards are replacing face to face status meetings and Power Point decks.
• Customers are increasingly relying on outside service firms for significant aspects of the product development process. EDA services revenue may be as large as EDA software revenue.
• Clearly imminent is a transition to cloud computing and SaaS models, whether at larger customers on virtualized datacenters or at smaller firms relying on third party cloud computing suppliers.

I welcome any perspectives on how you are coping with these your business or reasons why you think these are not real trends. Thanks for all of your comments and feedback in 2010.

Sean Murphy is CEO of SKMurphy, Inc, a consulting firm that offers customer development services for entrepreneurs with a focus on early customers and early revenue.