PDF Offers Value, Finds Scaling Difficult

I reiterate – not much has been happening in the EDA space. With Cadence having crashed earlier this month, the industry continues towards its bleak financial future, unless it takes necessary decisive steps. (Read more on Future of EDA and Future of EDA Addendum).

Yield is one of the big problems facing the EDA industry – as chips grow denser, yields suffer. EDA has done very little so far to impact yield. Design for Yield remains, by and large, a distant dream. A real pity! >>>

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Major Trends Driving Storage Vendors SanDisk, Seagate

With the booming digital content adoption, storage vendors are predictably showing strong performance. Sandisk is also benefiting from the convergence device movement, as the devices are becoming increasingly storage-heavy. Weaker consumer market notwithstanding, I think, both movements would continue. >>>

Cadence Crashes. Now What?

Cadence (NASDAQ: CDNS) reported its Q4 results on January 30, 2008. The quarter’s revenue at $457.9 million showed a 6% year on year growth over $431.0 million reported the previous year and a 14% sequential growth (over $401 million Q3 revenue).

The stock took a major beating as Q4 revenue was below market expectations of $470.3 million. On January 31, the stock fell to a new 52 week low of $9.89 – a 53% erosion of market value from the previous day close of $15.16. It has since recovered marginally and closed at $10.69 with a market cap of $2.9 Billion, its lowest in the last decade, yesterday. >>>

Motorola in Pain. Dell to Rescue?

Motorola has had a new CEO since January 1, 2008. Zander is gone. Greg Brown is at the helm.
And now there is talk of breaking the company up into pieces, spinning off the mobile handset unit. Carl Icahn also continues to lobby for a position on the Motorola Board. On January 23, 2008, Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) reported Q4 and 2007 financial results and its stock price hit a 52-week low of $9.43. The results are dismal, but let’s take a quick look at them anyway. >>>

Cisco Hits New 52-week Low

Yesterday, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) reported its financial results for Q2 2008 that met analyst estimates but forecast a slow Q3 reflecting cutback in technology budgets in the US. This news sent its stock plummeting to around $23 after hitting a 52-week low of $22.30 on January 23. Market cap is around $140 billion. This morning, the 52-week low number has changed to find a new low of $21.77. >>>

Qualcomm and Nokia Both Show Headroom

Guest Author Vijay Nagarajan has covered Qualcomm in great detail. Here are some of his prior writings on Qualcomm’s
Legal Battles , its aftermath, the impact on its margins, the Nokia war, and its effect on Qualcomm’s valuation.

In a nutshell, following the ITC ruling that held Qualcomm guilty for infringing on Broadcom’s patents, lawsuits seem to have snowballed for Qualcomm with Nokia seeking fairer licensing terms. These legal battles put its margin-heavy licensing business model in jeopardy. Vijay values the company at $47.2 if Qualcomm gets its way in the law suit and $40.6 if Nokia wins, which could tumble down to $36 in a domino effect situation.

Vijay has also pegged Interdigital (Nasdaq: IDCC) as a key acquisition target for Qualcomm.

With that as a background, let us look at the latest financial reports from Qualcomm and Nokia. >>>

Juniper Continues to Grow Confidently

Juniper is probably my favorite company in the networking equipment segment.

Yesterday, Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR) reported its results for Q4 and fiscal 2007 that ended December 31, 2007. Q4 revenue was $809.2 million, up 36% y-o-y and 10% sequentially. GAAP net income was $122.9 million or $0.22 per share on a diluted basis, up 73% y-o-y and 44% sequentially.

For the fiscal year 2007, revenue was $2.84 billion, up 23%. GAAP net income was $360.8 million or $0.62 per share on a diluted basis, compared with a GAAP net loss of $1,001.4 million, or $1.76 per share for 2006. Its headcount increased by 218 employees to 5,879 compared to Cisco’s 63,050. I like it that they grow without hiring ridiculous numbers of people. >>>

Polycom Surprises Wall Street

Yesterday, Polycom, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM) reported its results for Q4 and fiscal 2007 that ended Dec. 31. Earlier coverage on the company is available here and here.
My in-depth interview with CEO Bob Hagerty is here.

For Q4, net revenues were $263.3 million, up 41% y-o-y and 9.7% q-o-q. GAAP net income was $22.8 million, or 25 cents per diluted share, down 12% y-o-y and up 15% q-o-q. Polycom bought back $50 million worth of its stock and still has $140 million allocated for its share repurchase program. >>>

Apple Needs to Execute, No Longer Innovate

Yesterday, Apple released its earnings for its first quarter of fiscal 2008 that ended December 29, 2007. Revenue was $9.6 billion, up 35% y-o-y and 54% sequentially driven by the strong sales of Macs, iPhones, and iPods. Net income was $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share, up 58% y-o-y. Gross margin was 34.7%, up from 31.2% last year. Its cash balance increased by over $3 billion in the quarter and now rests at over $18.4 billion. Read my earlier post on what I think it might do with it.

In the quarter, Apple shipped 2.32 million Macs, a y-o-y growth of 44%. Mac products and services accounted for 47% of the revenue in the quarter. Its OS Leopard, released on October 26th, has already raked in revenue of $170 million during the quarter. >>>

Cisco Trading Near 52-week Lows

In 2007, Cisco benefited strongly from the trends of online video and network convergence with its home video (Scientific Atlanta) and Telepresence ventures. Net sales were $34.9 billion (up 23%) in fiscal 2007 and it added $9.6 billion in the first quarter (up 17% y-o-y and 2% q-o-q). It will be announcing its second quarter results on 6 Feb. During fiscal 2007, it repurchased 297 million shares for $7.8 billion. >>>