| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
XILINX ACQUIRES VISUAL SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
Q&A
1. Why did Xilinx acquire VSS?
The acquisition of VSS, and its StateCAD and HDL Bencher products,
is the natural conclusion of a process that started when Xilinx began shipping
these products as part of the EDA ALLSTAR program. These two design tools
will allow significant improvement in designer productivity, further accelerating
the time-to-market advantage of using Xilinx. Additionally, Xilinx purchased
the proprietary software debugging technology that VSS employed in delivering
its very high quality software products. The addition of this automated
debugging capability to Xilinx software quality assurance process will
further improve Xilinx software quality.
2. How will this impact existing VSS customers?
VSS sold its StateCAD and HDL Bencher products bundled with VSS E-Support
program. Customers were also offered the option to purchase “Gold” hotline
support. All existing customers will be supported throughout the
term of their existing contract, at the support level that they purchased.
Plans are being made to integrate this support into the Xilinx Global Services
organization.
Once this transition is completed, all VSS customers will be notified.
Until then, all VSS customers will be supported as they have been in the
past.
3. How will this impact out of maintenance VSS customers?
Customers of VSS StateCAD who are out of maintenance will be provided
an opportunity to upgrade to the most recent StateCAD tools directly from
Xilinx. Registered, out-of-maintenance customers will be contacted
directly by Xilinx detailing the specifics of the offer.
4. How will this impact existing Foundation ISE customers who have
XE versions of VSS tools?
The acquisition of VSS by Xilinx will make it easier for Xilinx to
offer an upgraded version of these tools to customers who require the higher
performance and capacity capabilities of the high-end products.
5. What will happen to current partner contracts with VSS?
Xilinx will honor and support all existing VSS contracts, ensuring
no disruption to partners or customers of these third party contracts.
Xilinx management is in the process of contacting the few companies that
are affected in order to work out the details.
6. Will Xilinx sell StateCAD and HDL Bencher?
In the near term, Xilinx has developed a last-time buy program, enabling
any design engineers currently considering a purchase of the VSS products
to do so through the existing channels. This program runs through
the end of the year and is for the purchase of products bundled with VSS
E-support only.
Going forward, Xilinx intends to utilize the powerful VSS products and
tremendous skills of the VSS resources to improve the productivity and
time-to-market for designers using Xilinx programmable logic devices.
To this end, each of the products acquired from this acquisition will be
sold as part of a comprehensive offering of design solutions available
from Xilinx.
7. Will buyers need to go through a Xilinx distributor?
Yes, and No. Xilinx is allowing a last time buy opportunity for
customers currently in the process of purchasing either StateCAD or HDL
Bencher from VSS or one of their existing distributors. This last
time buy program runs through the end of the year. After this time,
the VSS products will be available from the Xilinx E-Commerce site.
8. How will this effect the VSS organization and management?
The entire engineering and management team of VSS has signed on as
full-time Xilinx employees.
9. Will the "VSS" name be kept?
No. Xilinx has purchased all outstanding VSS stock, and after
the appropriate time, the VSS name and corporation will be dissolved.
The names StateCAD and HDL Bencher had been trademarked by VSS, and will
be retained and integrated into the Xilinx design environment.
10. What is the financial impact of the acquisition?
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The purchase is not
expected to have a material effect on Xilinx financial results
11. How can Xilinx customers obtain the high-end versions of StateCAD
and HDL Bencher?
High-end versions of StateCAD and HDL Bencher are available through
the existing VSS distribution channels through the end of 2000.
#0096
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