Ex-Gateway CEO exits Cadence to start firm

Electronic News, May 11, 1992

NORTH ANDOVER, MASS. -- Prabhu Goel, the president and chief executive of Gateway Design Automation Corp. before it was acquired by Cadence Design Systems Inc., has left Cadence to start a new software development company called Software & Technologies Inc.

Gateway, which created the Verilog hardware description language, merged with Cadence in October of 1989. Mr. Goel officially spent his last day as a director at Cadence last Thursday.

Prior to the merger of Cadence and Valid Logic Systems in December, Mr. Goel had been president of Cadence's computer-aided engineering division. Although his title changed to chief technical officer after that merger, Mr. Goel said much of his effort since that time has been directed toward the start-up.

Mr. Goel said he is the sole source of funding for the new venture, a pattern for which he is noted because of starting the highly successful Gateway without any venture financing. In fact, it is his success at Gateway and subsequently Cadence which has afforded him the wherewithal to bankroll the new company. With 2 percent of all Cadence stock, Mr. Goel is the single largest shareholder in Cadence.

Mr. Goel called Software & Technologies a "software foundry," providing highly optimized software development services for customers in a broad range of applications, including business, PC and database software. Mr. Goel said before the company begins developing software for customers, it will spend "a sizable amount of resources" looking into "the software manufacturing process.

"We will study the mechanics of software manufacturing," said Mr. Goel. "The implementation of software has its own technology, but most software development companies have not invested significant resources in looking at how that can be done more efficiently."

Mr. Goel said his company will develop "a software engine" which can be transferred across development projects. Once that engine has been developed, the company will begin providing turnkey development of software, utilizing the resources of specialized teams of engineers with expertise in core areas such as database technology, graphical user interfaces, compilers and so on. Mr. Goel said the teams will consist of employees in both the U.S. and India, thus enabling significant cost savings. At present, said Mr. Goel, the company has 25 or 30 employees in the U.S. and India.

Mr. Goel said his involvement in the company will not be full-time, as he is looking into several other software ventures as well. The company's day-to-day operations will be run by Ajoy Bose, who is president and chief operating officer. Dr. Bose was vice president of R&D at Cadence prior to the merger of Valid Logic, and has VLSI and CAD department head experience at AT&T Bell Laboratories. The company's vice president of engineering is Sunil Jain, also a former Cadence and Bell Laboratories employee.

Mr. Goel said the company already has two customers. One is believed to be Cadence itself, which is currently in the process of exploring new methods for optimizing its own software development efforts. Software & Technologies is deeply involved in that effort, Mr. Goel acknowledged.