Adrift...
Dataquest Dumps Design Automation

The unthinkable happened.

One moment, the tactician was sighting in the next mark of the race, preparing to advise his skipper as to whether their racing yacht should stay on their current tack and “cover from behind,” in an attempt to catch the lead boat, or turn away to defensively cover the attack from the boat trailing them.

A moment later, it was gone. The mark - their goal for their next leg of the race - had unceremoniously sunk into the sea, leaving no trace of its previous location. Spinning on his heels, the tactician saw that the previous mark had also disappeared into the deep green water. The entire race course had effectively suddenly vanished. He looked at his skipper and the other members of their yacht’s “brain trust” in confusion.

The entire racing fleet was now adrift at top speed. In a matter of seconds, what had been a tightly fought battle for supremacy on the race course became a seemingly random flotilla of overpowered racing hulls plowing aimlessly through the open ocean. Deprived of the metrics and checkpoints that allowed the crews to chart their course, plot their strategies, monitor their progress, and ultimately measure their success, they all suddenly felt devoid of purpose.

This week, Dataquest announced that they were closing their CAD group – the one that has measured the market shares of electronic design automation (EDA) companies for most of the existence of EDA as an industry. For as long as we can remember, the annual Dataquest market share numbers have served as the marks in the hard-fought regatta of the design tool industry. During the course of each year, anything could happen – new products were released, licensing models were adjusted, sales channels experimented with account strategies and pricing. At year’s end, however, the Dataquest numbers gave an unambiguous answer. Your product was now number two in the market with 22% share, only three percentage points behind the leader. Your hard work had paid off.

With the exit of Dataquest from the business, EDA is left adrift. Sure, nobody will go out of business any more than the racing yachts would suddenly sink if the racing committee abruptly pulled out of the event. Like the crews of those boats, however, the companies will have at least temporarily lost a sense of direction in their competitive spirit. After all, if you work all year, then can’t tell whether you gained or lost market share, what really is the point of it all? [more]