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December 2016 • The PCB Design Magazine 29 a list of prerequisites and requesting a response to each item, usually by checking off each box. OEMs would demand that software develop- ers give them the "check in the box," regard- less of how usable the actual solution might be. The bottom line was the sale didn't go through without all the checks in place, mostly because the people signing over the purchase money had no idea that half those checks might be half-finished software functions. Sometimes the buyers would figure out which checks were real through the demo process, but sometimes not. Of course, the level of integrity of the re- sponses to these lists was particular to each ven- dor. But more often than not, vendors suffered from the lower common denominator's desire to win sales over providing solid and forward moving solutions for engineers and designers. There were even some vendors in the mix that were built only on checking every box, creat- ing a fissure between the managers making such purchases and the actual designers trying to use software that barely functioned. Whether the selected software solution was appropriate for the actual design group became a difficult issue, and this disconnect remains, even today. Alongside the mainstream use of "the list," there were a few different methods of product pricing and bundling that made competition stiff among EDA vendors. Software vendors with a lot of development resources went with a method routinely referred to as "the whole kitchen sink," whereby users were handed soft- ware with so many options that they often couldn't figure out how to get the job done. This "kitchen sink" approach was a way to jus- tify the high prices of the software and entice managers to sign a deal even though a good 85% of what they were purchasing was either unusable or not needed. Software vendors and developers became so caught up in the num- ber of extras they could throw into the sale that they lost sight of their real objective: improving the mainstream user flow so that the design job could be done more smoothly. This approach worked fairly well when the market was able to support high prices for EDA software. But as heads were turned trying to offer this or that extra option to be more ap- pealing than the competition, lower-cost solu- tions sneaked into the market. These solutions competed well because they had fresher user interfaces using newer coding methods, so they appealed simply by the way they looked and felt to the user. These solutions didn't focus on offering "the whole kitchen sink." Rather, they got the job done in an easier-to-use application package. With the entry of lower level solutions, the market place suddenly had to get smarter about pricing and bundling to win sales. As the industry scrambled to create this or that package deal, or tiered pricing bundle to appeal to whatever end of the market a designer might fall into, a major change ensued that is worthy of note: The value of the intellectual prop- erty and development work that was put into the product was no longer the driving force of the price set for the product. HOW SELLING EDA SOFTWARE HAS CHANGED…OR NOT Abby Monaco celebrates after running in the 2016 New Orleans Rock and Roll Marathon.