
Siemens acquires Mentor Graphics - JoshTriplett
https://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Siemens-PLM-Corporate-Blog/Siemens-and-Mentor-Graphics-Open-Letter-to-Customers/ba-p/399976
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throwaway232399
The company I work for was acquired by Siemens PLM last year. I was worried at
first, but it proved to be much better than expected.

First of all it should be noted that Siemens PLM Software is a different
company than Siemens AG, with a different culture, different internal rules
and quite a different business. Most Siemens PLM employees come from other
acquisitions and they (Siemens) tend to keep the people and integrate them as
good as possible(in our case all employees were offered contracts and very few
decided to leave the company after the merger).

For us there was a slight downgrade in terms of internal systems (eg. from
G-Suite to Exchange and Outlook 2013 and other such changes, but at least we
can use Win10 instead of Win7).

On the more negative side, the process for traveling is a impossibly
complicated and there are several other procedures as well that are
unnecessarily complex and take a long time to go through.

Overall for me it was a positive change so far and my advice to Mentor Graphic
employees is not to worry too much, change is coming but it will be slow and
not disruptive.

~~~
ksec
>from G-Suite to Exchange and Outlook 2013

I actually think of that as an upgrade. Or at best they are pretty much the
same. I have yet to see a Email solution that is any good.

~~~
friendzis
I think they (g-suite, MS suite) solve a bit different problems and I would
agree that MS suite is more suitable for established enterprise with e.g.
ability to book meeting times and places, lync integration with e.g. tandberg.

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dano
Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics have been fighting it out in the EDA
industry for decades. Synopsys and Cadence are the leaders of the pack.
Synopsis has been the better stock over the last 7 years, however, Cadence has
picked up well too.

~~~
kev009
The industry is basically derelict which may be surprising to a lot of people.
The design and layout software hasn't changed much in decades. Analog/RF mixed
signal circuit design in particular is arcane, manual magic even though it
doesn't have to be with modern computing power and simulation capabilities.

~~~
amelius
The main problem is that _somehow_ there just isn't much money to be made in
EDA tooling. Go to any EDA conference and ask anyone in a business booth.

~~~
kev009
There's quite a bit of money, a license for a small design shop will easily
span from mid six figures to millions. There is rampant theft though, see the
recent [http://norcalrecord.com/stories/511081584-synopsis-claims-
ub...](http://norcalrecord.com/stories/511081584-synopsis-claims-ubiquiti-
networks-is-unlawfully-using-software) as an example

The real reason innovation died is a complex and meandering sadness, but
basically the business leaders prioritized head count and comfort over
whatever it takes to lure creative, intelligent, academic, etc people into an
industry and do non-linear things. I think there are similar parallels to
computer architecture and operating systems, but these are a bit more widely
approachable so there's still a small influx of academics and new companies.

~~~
wolfgke
> There is rampant theft though, see the recent
> [http://norcalrecord.com/stories/511081584-synopsis-claims-
> ub...](http://norcalrecord.com/stories/511081584-synopsis-claims-ub..). as
> an example

This is not theft, but unauthorized use of the software.

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TheGrassyKnoll
My introduction to a Unix like operating system was using Aegis on the old
Apollo workstations that Mentor came out on. (Installing software with giant 8
inch floppies was big fun)

After getting smoked by Sun, Apollo was absorbed by HP in the 90's...

~~~
madengr
I had HP Microwave Design System on an Apollo workstation.

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joezydeco
Mentor also owned CodeSourcery. Wonder if that's getting buried even further
now.

~~~
fazkan
It's not, codesourcery was combined with Nucleus and provided as a completed
suit called readystart. We have a really good support for hardware out there.
I know codesourcery alone would have been enough but they just repackaged it.

P.S. I work on Nucleus..

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yitchelle
Mentor Graphics is also a big player in the Automotive industry supplying many
large OEMs and Suppliers with AutoSAR platforms (among others) and integration
engineering services.

It will be interesting how this plays out in that domain.

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jamez1
"By the way, once Mentor Graphics is integrated, you will see there, up on the
left side, a $4.7 billion revenue, which brings us to the top 10 of software
companies globally. Believe it or not, this is our best strength. And if you
really look at that, we are really focused on our industry software. We are
amongst the leaders. And that's a very powerful portfolio which helps us
really driving the digitalization agenda at our customers very much. You see
already in MindSphere the operating system, open operating system. I will
explain to you what it does and how it benefits our customers, some of the
benefits."

Sounds like management just wanted to say they run a big company. I don't see
why this acquisition makes sense for shareholders

~~~
orbifold
They already produce various simulation tools for simulation aspects of
factories (robots, production lines, etc). Adding a "RTL simulator" company
seems like a logical step, the verification problems share a lot of common and
you get to claim that you are able to simulate the industrial robot including
its custom microchips, or a car seat (they have custom chips for the airbags
for example).

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sporkenfang
Isn't this old news? I heard about it roughly four months ago and don't work
for either company.

~~~
sam
The acquisition was announced last November but it appears that the deal
actually closed today.

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josh_carterPDX
This actually makes a lot of sense. Siemens has a number of different hardware
systems and Mentor Graphics could provide a better solution for them as they
work to transition away from hardware.

Avaya struggled with this in the telecom space and are struggling to survive.
Siemens' telecom gear is a distant 3rd to Avaya and Cisco, but if they can do
what both of them have been unable to do up to this point, they may be able to
gobble up some market share in the enterprise communication space on top of
their other hardware solutions.

~~~
currysausage
_> Siemens' telecom gear_

Siemens hasn't been active in the telecom space for a while, they gave up on
this business more than 10 years ago. Unify, formerly Siemens Enterprise
Communications (majority-owned by Gores Group since 2008), has been a 100 %
subsidiary of Atos for over a year now.

~~~
josh_carterPDX
Ah you're right. Totally forgot about that. Thanks for clarifying. :)

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valuearb
I don't want to date how old I am, but when I first started as a developer in
Oregon, Mentor Graphics was big into object oriented programming. They even
had a OOPS research think tank, but can't remember it's name.

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johansch
.. and noone here (including myself) has any clue what it means in real-life.
There is no discussion of potential consequences etc.

I'm not sure this is how it should be (EDA professionals congregrate
elsewhere, I assume)... but it kinda sucks. These things are so important to
our collective progression, but it's all done in closed-source silos when it
comes to hardware things.

~~~
robotdad
Where do EDA types congregate?

~~~
ihaveajob
Back when I was at Intel I wasn't aware of anyone frequenting EDA-specific
forums. The annual IDC (Intel Developers Conference) was the biggest physical
meetup as far as I recall. Also, there were the other company-led events. Very
segmented.

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madengr
Does anyone actually use Tormentor (other than Calibre for DRC)?

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ausjke
how does this make sense? Siemens really has nothing to do with EDA/etc.

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jlarocco
What? Siemens has a whole division working on PLM, including the high-end NX
CAD system. No doubt the plan involves integrating Mentor's EDA with NX.

~~~
phkahler
Not to mention parasoled which is the core of almost every other commercial
CAD program.

