Subject: Cooley humbled for dissing Data Design Management "heroes"

> MONEY & LOVE: For such a boring area as "Design Management", or as their
> compulsive marketing people like to say, "Design Data Management", I got
> a surprising number of customer responses on IC Manage.  They seem to
> have a loyal (albeit "odd") following.  Go figure.
>
>   - http://www.deepchip.com/items/dac09-12.html


From: Shiv Sikand <shiv=user domain=icmanage not calm>
To: John Cooley <jcooley=user domain=zeroskew not calm>

Hi, John,

My dictionary tells me this:

  Odd - the quality of being unpaired, occasional, strange or unusual,
        or a person who is viewed as eccentric.

However, an acronym finder also tells me that "ODD" can mean Oppositional
Defiant Disorder - a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior
toward authority figures.

It seems that you are a perfect match for both!  In fact, anyone who names
his goats "Aart" and "Harvey" is certifiably odd.

On the other hand, those who like DM are hardly odd since they are the
unsung heroes of IC design - the guys and gals who put the flows in place
and manage them so that chips actually come back from the fab as the
designers intended.

    - Shiv Sikand
      IC Manage, Inc.                            Los Gatos, CA

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From: John Cooley <jcooley=user domain=zeroskew not calm>
To: Shiv Sikand <shiv=user domain=icmanage not calm>

Come on, Shiv!

If you didn't make your living selling DM SW, you'd freely agree with me
that your "unsung heroes of IC design" who get all giddy about Design Data
Management SW are also the same guys who, at 45 years old, still live in
their mom's basement and spend their free time at SciFi conventions arguing
plot inconsistencies in old Star Trek episodes.

DDM is the janitorial work of chip design; it's not a place of glory.  The
people who do it are unsung heroes of your paycheck, Shiv, and nothing more.

Q: When you were a college student was DDM your dream job?  (Answer honestly
now!)  Did you even know of one person then who ever expressed an interest
in anything even remotely related to DDM back then?

I didn't think so.

    - John Cooley
      DeepChip.com                               Holliston, MA

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From: Shiv Sikand <shiv=user domain=icmanage not calm>
To: John Cooley <jcooley=user domain=zeroskew not calm>

John,

One of my first projects out of school in 1995 was actually building data
management solutions at SGI/MIPS.  I subsequently open sourced some parts
of my work (http://www.deepchip.com/items/0383-11.html) and deployed it at
Velio Communications in 2000, and then again at Matrix Semiconductors in
2001 (http://www.deepchip.com/items/0401-07.html) before starting IC Manage
in 2003.  DM has been a serious professional interest of mine since college
and not about a paycheck.

    - Shiv Sikand
      IC Manage, Inc.                            Los Gatos, CA

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From: John Cooley <jcooley=user domain=zeroskew not calm>
To: Shiv Sikand <shiv=user domain=icmanage not calm>

Ouch!  I stupidly walked into that one, didn't I?  Mondo ouch!

    - John Cooley
      DeepChip.com                               Holliston, MA

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From: Shiv Sikand <shiv=user domain=icmanage not calm>
To: John Cooley <jcooley=user domain=zeroskew not calm>

P.S. And for the record, I do love Star Trek but don't need to live in my
mom's basement anymore because IC Manage is really quite successful!

    - Shiv Sikand
      IC Manage, Inc.                            Los Gatos, CA