#EDA Poll on Cadence's purchase of Denali. How the EDA vendors voted.

On May 13, 2010 Cadence Design Systems announced their intention to purchase Denali Software Inc. for $315M.

The history of the EDA industry is replete with acquisitions, and the most significant innovations have generally come from the startups. This acquisition is noteworthy for several reasons:

1. The purchase price, $315 million for a company with $43 million in revenue, is large as these purchases go. As a comparison, in 2005 Synopsys purchased Nassda, which had similar revenue, for an "aggregate consideration" of approximately $192 million. (With a net that was much less since Nassda reported cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $101.4 million).When Synopsys purchased Synplicity in 2008, for $188M, the company more than $70M of revenue. I'm sure you can find many other examples as well.
2. Denali has long been held up as the model of a "profitable independent company" in the EDA industry.
3. The EDA industry obsession with the infamous annual Denali Party at DAC. If you do a search on Twitter, you'll find that many more tweets about the party than about the acquisition. Apparently there has been a bit of a concern that the party would not happen now.

I launched an online poll shortly after the announcement of the acquisition. The two parties involved in the acquisition were quick to respond, and competitors and users soon followed. I'd like to invite more users to take the survey, which you can find my clicking here.  The poll is anonymous, except for IP addresses.

The survey asks just 1 simple question: Do you think that Cadence's purchase of Denali will provide a benefit for designers?

As you can see, 6 votes came in from Cadence IP addresses, with 5 YES but 1 NO! In fact, the 1 NO vote came in before all the others. One Denali employee also voted YES. Two competitors of Cadence-Denali, who will remain nameless, also voted NO.

My experience with surveys in general is that they are difficult to get response to, so the small number's don't surprise me. This acquisition doesn't seem to have a very long tail in the twitter/blogosphere but if you have an opinion I invite you to add your vote.