DAC CEO panel: audience questions that weren't asked

The three CEOs and the moderator (Dr. Juan-Antonio Carballo of IBM) all did a fantastic job. The discussion was informative, substantive and upbeat. I hope the event will prove worth repeating. This posting is about "the audience questions that weren't asked".

To enable audience input, but with a 'filter', my cell number was shown on-screen at the beginning of the session, so that audience members could SMS their questions during the panel.

If a question looked promising, I wrote it down on paper, handed the paper to Juan-Antonio, and then typed the questions into two copies of PowerPoint running on two laptops on stage.

Using a video switch, no matter the 'parity', I could always switch seamlessly to whatever question Juan-Antonio decided to ask.

Out of the questions that I received via SMS, eight made it into the final PowerPoint files on the laptops on stage. Seven out of the eight were actually discussed by the panelists:

From: 1917331xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:44 PM

Do you agree that Eda gets an unfairly low share of the semiconductor industry relative to it's importance? If so, what are the reasons.

From: 1650793xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:45 PM

Qn for DAC CEO panel. Under current economic conditions. What advice do you have for CEOs of EDA startups?

From: 1979645xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:45 PM

How will eda industry keep attracting young talent?

From: 1503265xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:52 PM

EDA has typically been a provider to the semiconductor industry. Do you see a move towards automating the design process of other industries? Which ones?

From: 1503701xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:04 PM

What EDA silver bullet will have a big impact on design cost?

From: 1415264xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:04 PM

Best in breed multi-vendor EDA suppliers, or integrated vertical EDA solutions - what direction is the industry heading?

From: 1650678xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:15 PM

How are you, the CEOs of the 3 largest companies, running your own companies differently during this downturn?

From: 1408888xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:33 PM

How do you keep the smartest grad students in universities working on important EDA problems ? Even die-hard eda faculty are moving to other areas.

But many other questions came into my phone. Following is the list — verbatim, typos and all.

From: 1925216xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:42 PM

What steps are being done to address software piracy..it continues to grow worldwide and erode value and revenue

From: 1415710xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:42 PM

Has the core eda digital implementation market effectively been commoditized with little differentiation between vendors?

From: 1650759xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:42 PM

Shouid TSMC be a member of EDAC?

From: 1408472xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:43 PM

Is pricing war accelerating EDA industry revenue decline? How do you envision price war stopping?

From: 1785979xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:45 PM

Are the students in the university right now the luckiest or poorest?

From: 1408219xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:45 PM

how big 3 will collabrate

From: 1650906xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:45 PM

Does the current economic situation increase the possibility of an EDA gorilla emerging and what would be the effect on the eda industry if one company emerges as an EDA "gorilla"?

From: 1979645xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:45 PM

How will eda industry keep attracting young talent?

From: 1503807xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:46 PM

Eda has underperformed IC industry. How much of this underperformance is self inflicted by pricing games, and is there any hope that we can see pricing improvments in an upturn?

From: 1917459xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:47 PM

Why won't eda be persistently stuck in a $4-$5 bn range even in a better economy?

From: 1408219xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:48 PM

With cost being such a driver for semiconductor industry how are your companies enabling cross EDA industry efficiencies? ie standard formats and true interoperability not proprietary interoperability.

From: 1408888xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:48 PM

To grow this EDA industry do we need to extract more value for exisiting tool flows or expand the definition of what constitutes EDA ?

From: 1650464xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:49 PM

Realistically, the only industry players that can impose pricing discipline are the largest, perhaps just the Top 2. Yet we continue to see pricing-based competition which serves only to erode Total Available Market. Why can't our industry act in our own best interest?

From: 1408202xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:50 PM

How will you re-establish value of EDA after a period of price cutting wars exacerbated by faltering Semi (& EDA) companies & "creative deal structuring"?

From: 1408644xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 4:59 PM

If neither VCs nor public companies invest in EDA/ESL startups, where will innovation come from?

From: 1408644xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:02 PM

Would anyone on the panel support a significant EDA improvement in efficiency if the new technology did NOT give their company a significant advantage?

From: 1408705xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:03 PM

Will EDA ever move to a delivery model that bundles all tools from all vendors and delivers them on demand like a power outlet/utility with a rate based on user actual demand of particular packages that have tiered pricing rather than VPAs that throw in popular packages bundled with less useful ones? Would this not help startups as well as large vendors by increasing demand based on need and not what can be affordable? Thx

From: 1650678xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:04 PM

For Li-Bu Tan; What is Cadence doing differently under you than under their prior CEO?

From: 1650210xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:07 PM

Do you see EDA heading to Detroit's fate in 10 years, giving that the market has been mature for a decade.

From: 1503807xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:09 PM

For Aart and lip bu. What is your run-away strategy. Applied materials has solar, Wally has automotive, what are cdns and snps doing to escape the low/no growth IC industry?

From: 1650283xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:10 PM

Do the ceo's see value and/or participate in social media to reach customers or partners, like facebook, twitter, blog, or even i-love-dac? If not now, when?

From: 1408472xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:10 PM

If the economy gets even tougher or dips again - will you focus only on products that you are No. 1 in?

From: 1650862xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:16 PM

If moore's law did end, how would it affect eda industry?

From: 1408218xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:17 PM

Will eda industry change the pricing model to stimulate growth?

From: 1408483xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:18 PM

How can the triditional eda suppliers embrase software design tools?

From: 1408598xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:18 PM

Are you hiring more offshore as opposed to locally? If so, is this mostly to reduce cost or is that b/c offshore growth is greater?

From: 1650575xxxx Sent: Jul 27, 2009 5:44 PM

CEOs: where are you with cloud computing?