Although there are a plethora of topics that should and could be addressed here in EDA Confidential as September draws to a close – things like developments in the IP industry, the state of semiconductor stocks on the world markets, news regarding the on-going legal wrangles between high profile players in the EDA industry, and so forth and so on – I’m going to turn my back on all of that and talk about a place that is close to my heart – Guatemala.

I have been in Guatemala at this point for going on two weeks. In that time, I have had a lot of time to visit with friends and family here, to contemplate the state of the Third World when held up against the foil of the high-tech, consumer-driven, economically dynamic First World, and to wonder at how little connection there is here between the lives and issues that swirl about in this country and the things that swirl about in, say, ESNUG, or EETimes, or EDN, and so forth.

Press releases from the various companies in ‘our’ industry that have tumbled into my e-mail InBox over the last two weeks have seemed lifeless, dead, and without soul when read here amidst the complicated situation that defines life today in Central America. Moore’s Law is not a hot topic of conversation here.

And why is that? Well, this is a complicated place – a country that is really multiple countries all rolled into one. Of course, that truism applies to every country and region in the world. After all, every family, neighborhood, school, cultural group, city, county, or state can be seen as a country within a country. But as true as that might be, Guatemala – like many countries in the third world today – really is multiple countries all rolled into one.

Five hundred years after Alvarado conquered this part of the world on behalf of the Spanish crown, Spanish is the principle language here. Of course, in the modern era of cable and satellite-dish TV, the Internet, cell phones and widely disseminated pop culture from the first world – English is spoken here, as well.

For those of you who travel internationally, this is no surprise. There are many places today where English is an adequate, albeit imperfect, idiom with which to interact with your environment, the de facto language standard within which international commerce takes place. In any case, English is widely spoken in Guatemala today.

But it’s not just English and Spanish here. There are, in fact, many other languages spoken within the borders of this beautiful and oftentimes troubled place. Estimates range from 20 to 25 different languages, all descended from languages spoken by the various peoples who populated this part of the ‘New World’ for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.

Those peoples today are roughly lumped into a large population described as Mayan – although there are other, non-Mayan indigenous ethnicities extant here in this country today. Nonetheless, Guatemala is known as the Land of the Maya, ironically of course, because pre-Columbian peoples who were Mayan also lived in what is today Honduras and southern Mexico – modern-day Chiapas, in particular.

Meanwhile, for those of you who are even vaguely aware of the history of Central America over the last 40 or 50 years, you know that there have been horrific wars in this part of the world. These wars have arisen from multiple and complex motivations – race, social and economic inequity, political creeds, super powers cruelly playing out their global power struggle within the torrid jungles and impoverished villages of the Central American isthmus, and the international drug trade – to name just a few.

These wars have exacted a terrible price in the various countries of Central America, the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, the destruction of whole communities and the delicate social fabric that those communities represented, and an upending of the potential of this place and this region, the repercussion of which will take generations to overcome.

What, except complete and total despair, is the appropriate conclusion for the local student of recent history? Is there really any reason to hope for a better future here in this beautiful and oftentimes troubled place?

Well, as I write this, I’m sitting in a hotel computer room in downtown Guatemala. There is dial-up Internet access here 24 hours a day, hence there is obviously electricity here 24 hours a day. Much more than when I first came here 20 years ago, the water out of the tap or the ice in the restaurants – depending on where you’re residing in Guatemala – is potable. There are tall steel and glass skyscrapers peppering the downtown areas of the city and you see people all over everywhere, and seemingly from many walks of life, carrying cell phones.

Of course, you're advised not to wear jewelry out on the street. Muggings even in broad daylight are not uncommon. Restaurants have armed guards at every door. It’s not infrequent that an entire lunchtime crowd is relieved of their wallets and watches by a group of thieves who have evaded the guards at the door. There are men lounging on a nearby corner with their submachine guns hanging from their shoulders – they're guarding the Bingo Casino. Even the Laundromat has got a guy at the door who’s armed and menacing.

Oftentimes when people are robbed, or even murdered, the police are not contacted. It’s often perceived to be useless. People tend to think nothing’s going to come of it anyway, so why bother. Yet ‘everybody’s’ got a cell phone.

Welcome to the irony of the Third World on the threshold of the 21st century. Also welcome to that back-assward wackiness of the First World where senior executives in EDA continue to discuss with mindless, ubiquitous abandon in keynotes and press events the shopping habits of their wives (‘’She’s really been eyeing a new plasma screen TV.’’) or their children (‘’My kids, like yours, absolutely demand to have the latest camera-enabled cell phone in the trendiest styles and colors.’’).

Several days ago, I was eating pizza with friends at an outdoor café near here. As we were eating, a boy who looked to be about 8 years old approached us asking us if we would like to have our shoes shined. It was 1 o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of the week. Clearly he was not in school. He looked like my little boy looked when he was 8 years old, but this child was tired and lifeless – I’m guessing, burdened with having to return home with a certain amount of earnings for that day or else.

I wonder what color cell phone he would choose if he could.

The EDA industry today is on a roll. The majority of the Silicon Valley based companies in the industry can’t move fast enough to invest in off-shore institutes, universities, trade schools, companies and R&D centers where their tools will be used, and whole generations of students in new geographies will become productive designers feeding the happy world of the semiconductor supply chain.

Oddly however, even though this place is only 2 hours, give or take, from Dallas or Austin, I have yet to see a single press release from any company in ‘our’ industry touting an investment in an institute, a university, a trade school, a company or an R&D center anywhere here in Central America.

For the EDA industry, this place is not the Third World, it’s the No World. It just doesn’t exist. Yet there are consumers here, there are schools and universities here, there are even engineers here – and electronics stores, and Internet cafes – but there is no EDA industry here.

I wish that would change. I wish that those EDA executives endowed with 6- and 7-figure salaries would fail, for once, to mention their wives or their children, and would mention instead my young shoe shine boy in one of their keynote addresses.

I wish I would see a press release touting an investment in this place, this country, this region that reflected a worldliness that extended beyond a droid-like commitment to places on the other side of the globe where we don’t have to face the tough questions that define the First World/Third World interface in our own backyard.

The EDA industry, as plucky and powerful and pivotal as it constantly insists on being perceived, could be a force for change here if they wanted to be. There are cell phones here. There are TVs here. There’s an Internet here. There are cars, hotels, water, pollution, and hungry consumers. Why not bring the tools of the future here? Why not see if Moore’s Law could be inserted into the landscape here?

EDA could do it if they really wanted to. They’re always bragging about being involved in bettering emerging economies, so why not one that’s an emerging economy and a neighbor as well? Why not come here to Guatemala, Central America, and see what could be done?

This is the Land of Eternal Spring. The EDA industry could help transform this place into one where Hope Springs Eternal, as well. How marvelous that could be – and what a helluva keynote such an effort would provide.

What color is your cell phone?

September 28, 2005

Peggy Aycinena owns and operates EDA Confidential. She can be reached at peggy@aycinena.com

Copyright (c) 2005, Peggy Aycinena. All rights reserved.