Microsoft, The Sleeping Giant

In 2008, I hope Microsoft wakes up. With Google and Apple going gangbusters, Microsoft has threats coming at it from every direction. As we discussed earlier, Microsoft earned revenues of $13.76 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, a 27% increase over the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and

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Will Magma Die on the Vine?

Magma Design Automation, Inc. (LAVA) provides electronic design automation software products and related services, and is our fourth and final company in the EDA review. In February 2007 I reviewed Magma and noted they were a potential acquisition target given their legal problems in a losing patent fight with Synopsys. I pondered on the possibility

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Interdigital: The Apple deal

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author So far, I have presented an argument for why Interdigital stands to gain from the iPhone. Early this fall, the company signed a 7-year licensing agreement with Apple. Here is my interpretation of the license –

Interdigital: Inside the iPhone

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author I concluded the last article in this series postulating that Interdigital will stand to gain not only from the licensing of essential patents to Apple but also from individual iPhone sales. To reason this out, let us take a quick look at the Infineon chipset in the current iPhone design-

Mentor Graphics: LBO Recommended

Our third company in the EDA review is Mentor Graphics (MENT). As I said in the Cadence piece, if any company in the EDA industry is perfect for an LBO, it is Mentor Graphics. It has at least two excellent franchises – DFM and PCB design – and other players in the industry would be

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Interdigital: The Infineon Alliance

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author In the last article in this series, we took a brief look at Interdigital’s new 3G ASIC venture and the thought process behind these moves. In this piece, I wish to focus on the company’s alliance with Infineon, the German semiconductor company, whose latest claim to wireless fame is its

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Synopsys Looks Healthy, But

In our EDA review, Synopsys (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the second major player, always going neck-to-neck with Cadence. Synopsys announced Q4 earnings on December 6, 2007. Unlike the losses posted by competitor Mentor, Synopsys executives were quite pleased with their results and momentum throughout the year enabling Synopsys to meet or exceed all of their original

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Convergence Device Components: Unwisely Beaten Up?

I had earlier covered Broadcom, Marvell, Micron, and National Semi in the series on iPhone’s component ecosystem. Broadcom and Marvell were covered in the iPhone and the Future series as well. And this week, Vijay Nagarajan launched his deep-dive on Broadcom. Lets take a look at the financials in this post.