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The future of tradeshows

December 21, 2011 / 4:02 PM / by Paul McLellan

I just read that Microsoft has decided that this will be the last year that they attend the Consumer Electronics Show. For years they have had the biggest booth, and either Gates or Ballmer has given the keynote. Apple doesn't attend CES either, and even announced the iPhone during CES but at their own Apple event, thus stealing all the thunder from the whole show.

Microsoft say that they prefer to make announcements on their own schedule rather than be driven by a tradeshow. In fact nothing very interesting has been announced at CES recently, mostly televisions and tablets and such that are like ones already on the market.

In our smaller world a similar dynamic has been playing out. Back when I worked at Cadence we would take about 600 people to DAC, have 50 or 60 demo suites running continuously. The other big EDA companies did the same. Then there was one year when Cadence decided not to go but run their own mini-show in parallel. They got enough bad publicity from that that they returned to DAC, but in a fairly minimal manner. Their main show was CDNlive which they took around the world. Synopsys did much the same. Taking a huge number of people and paying a huge amount for floorspace without getting the full attention of all the attendees just didn't make that much sense. A token presence and a dedicated show was a better approach.

Of course big companies don't have any serendipitous discoveries either. Nobody walks onto Synopsys's booth and says "wow, I didn't realize you did synthesis." That is not true for smaller companies, many of whom are unknown to most of the attendees and it is their chance at fame and fortune.

Interestingly, the companies that take DAC the most seriously, at least for the last couple of years, have been the mid-sized ones like Apache or Atrenta. For them having a fairly sizable booth is a good way to meet their customers and potential customers since taking their own show on the road probably is too expensive.

But I think clearly the writing is on the wall long-term for tradeshows. But in the short term they aren't going away, any more than newspapers (another industry where the writing is on the wall). In the meantime, I'll see you at DAC in June.

Wishing everyone the best for the holidays and a great 2012.

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Comments

January 5, 2012 / 3:26 AM / by philippe_faes

Yes, the big companies are putting less emphasis on trade shows like DAC. But there are good reasons why the smallest EDA companies wouldn't do that either. Getting the smallest possible booth at DAC still has a significant cost in renting (and travel, and staffing). And those small booths would be tucked away somewhere and look pale compared to the mid-sized and large booths.
Another reason for my company, Sigasi, not to have a booth at DAC is that most of our customers are FPGA designers, not ASIC people. As you know, the FPGA vendors have left DAC too.

My strategy is to visit DAC, meet a lot of people in the EDA business and have lunch with customers. So, as Paul says: I'll see you at DAC in June!

January 5, 2012 / 6:07 AM / by dSelwood

This is a very US centered discussion. If you look at Germany, trade shows are booming, with embedded world, electronica and productronica looking good in the broader field, and this year's DATE is building on a couple of years of growth.

The big problem is that for the EDA industry, DAC has been a seriously distorting element in the Marcom mix. EDA has never advertised, so there is no print magazine and little coverage in the general electronics press. (Open product puff- EE Journal is covering this area regularly). For many years then it has been DAC or nothing.

And many of the small and middle sized companies, having spent the money on the booth, travel and accommodation etc, just sit back and wait for people to walk on to the booth. They didn't think of making an effort to get prospects and customers invited for scheduled meetings to bring them up to date or to talk through the road maps.