Can you describe briefly your main line of business?

AWR is a leading developer of electronic design automation (EDA) software for wireless technology. Essentially, we help engineers design the integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), and electronic components that make wireless technology so pervasive. Chances are the cell phone, PDA, satellite radio, or wireless LAN on which you rely was designed using technology from AWR.

What is your best selling product and where do you ship it most?

Our flagship product is Microwave Office 2007 design suite, and it is sold to leading electronics companies throughout the world. While North America remains our single largest market, more than half of AWR's business now comes from combined sales in Europe and Asia. The United States, Japan, and Scandinavia are large markets for our technology, but countries such as India, Taiwan, and China have been growing rapidly in recent years.

What's your roadmap from there?

AWR has established itself as a leading EDA company for "high-frequency electronics," and the beauty of our position is that we don't have to go searching for business because the electronics market is coming toward us. Electronic appliances are becoming faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient, driving a rapidly growing need for RF design tools that model the electromagnetic effects of circuits and systems. This means it is becoming more and more necessary for designers to shift away from traditional design tools for low-frequency applications and to move to tools like Microwave Office and Analog Office that provide fast and accurate design technologies at higher frequencies, and that are specifically developed for modern design requirements. Today we are seeing more and more use of complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies in RF applications, and AWR tools are uniquely qualified to simulate and lay out these next-generation RFICs.

How do you differentiate from your competitors?

At the core of all AWR software products is our unique unified data model (UDM), which enables our tools to handle the simulation and layout of electronics concurrently. Our competitors, on the other hand, are using disjointed legacy systems that are limited to a serial process in which simulations must be run separate and apart from the layout process. AWR users can model all the interconnects incrementally, thereby identifying problems early in the design process. Users of legacy systems, however, can only model these effects at the end of the design process, so if it doesn't work they must rip things up and try all over again. AWR has streamlined the design process, and our customers' chips tend to work the first time. As a result, we have earned an incredibly high level of customer satisfaction within the EDA industry.

Any strategic move planned for the future?

Yes, we are getting ready to launch a revolutionary new product that has been in development for the last five years. While I can't provide details as this time, we are very confident that the company will be continuing on a path of uninterrupted growth.

What would make your life easier in this business?

Our biggest wish is to see more openness and cooperation within the EDA industry. It is unfortunate that many EDA companies talk a good game about openness, yet they invest 90% of their resources in building walls and 10% of their resources in building bridges. This is a poor strategy for customer service, because it reduces choice and raises CAD support costs, making innovation difficult and limiting progress. AWR was founded on the philosophy of openness and our software integrates seamlessly with best-in-class third-party products, enabling designers to choose the best tool for the particular job. We'd like to see a more dynamic and open EDA marketplace and we encourage engineers and designers to embrace new technologies and innovative solutions.