Cadence rolls out e-commerce site in North America

Cadence rolls out e-commerce site in North America
SAN MATEO, Calif. — Cadence Design Systems Inc. this week is rolling out the e-commerce initiative of its PCB Systems Division. The move will let customers purchase products, training and services as well as access specific real-time information on their accounts.

Starting Monday (July 24), engineers in North America will be able to access Cadence's e-commerce site at www.PCB.Cadence.com to purchase OrCAD products, training and services, according to Jamie Metcalf, vice president of marketing for Cadence's PCB System Division.

"The offering represents the first step in our strategy for leveraging the Internet to improve the productivity of Cadence customers," said Metcalf. "We chose to do OrCAD products first because they are our high-volume products."

In subsequent phases, Metcalf said, the company plans to extend the e-commerce capability to other countries, allow engineers to access the rest of its pc-board products and then extend the service to the rest of the Cadence line, including IC design tools.

Metcalf said the first phase will allow customers to purchase 99-year perpetual licenses and, eventually, time-based licenses. The site allows customers to purchase OrCAD tools with a credit card. When ready to offer its larger tools through the site, Cadence will support electronic purchase orders.

ASP model

Metcalf also said the company may offer the OrCAD line and others through an application service provider (ASP) model, which would essentially allow customers to rent tools for a given period and run them via the Web, with the bulk of the software running on Cadence-maintained hardware.

The company is offering e-commerce access to North American clients now and is negotiating with its VARs around the world about extending that capability.

As another part of the Cadence initiative, Metcalf said, Cadence will create customized Web site access similar to My Yahoo. Users will be able to describe the types of tools and information they now use or are interested in using, and Cadence will provide tech information, product news and updates to individual customers via the Internet, Metcalf said.

The site now offers users direct access for purchasing OrCAD products and services. It also offers some customer support, but users will still have to access Cadence's help line or SourceLink to get help. Future phases will give users 24/7 access to customer support through either the e-commerce site or their custom site.

The announcement follows a flurry of Cadence Internet releases, including the launching of the PSpice.com and Specctra.com Web community portals, the SpinCircuit spin-off, the Quickturn Quickcycles ASP and the release of the XML library management tools. Metcalf said Cadence has made a "considerable investment" in its Internet strategy and will continue to improve its e-commerce and other sites.

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