Red Hat’s Technical Account Management (TAM) Service Helps Mentor Graphics Speed Its EDA Solutions to Market

FAST FACTS

Company: Mentor Graphics

Industry: Technology

Geography: Wilsonville, Oregon

Business Challenge: Facilitate use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to deliver mission-critical electronic design automation (EDA) software and hardware designs to market

Solution: Subscribe to Red Hat’s Technical Account Management (TAM) service, Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Benefits: Immediate response to questions and issues regarding Red Hat solutions. Direct access to senior Red Hat technical staff. Increased return on investment (ROI) of deploying Red Hat solutions. Improved time-to-market.

“For any company that needs an additional level of support above the standard offering, Red Hat’s TAM service is the answer. In addition to providing us with a great opportunity to build a deeper relationship with Red Hat, it enables us to leverage Red Hat products for greater competitive advantage.”
–Laurent Rochette, alliance manager, independent software vendors (ISVs), Mentor Graphics

Download [PDF]

BACKGROUND
Founded in 1981, Mentor Graphics is a leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA), delivering software and hardware design solutions that enable electronics manufacturers to bring products to market faster and more cost-effectively. As the only company offering an embedded software solution for the electronics industry, Mentor Graphics has developed leading-edge and best-of-breed products for more than 25 years. It delivers excellence in an industry where technological complexity and rate of innovation challenge even the brightest board and chip design engineers.

Based in Wilsonville, Oregon, with offices in Silicon Valley and 70 other locations around the globe, Mentor Graphics earned $850 million in revenues in fiscal 2007, and employs 4,450 workers worldwide.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Mentor Graphics began using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in 2002 as part of its engineering infrastructure for Linux to develop efficient and cost-effective EDA products. These systems were critical to Mentor Graphics’ success because of the fast-moving and highly competitive nature of the EDA market. “Our customers are aggressively seeking to lower their manufacturing cycle times and costs,” said Laurent Rochette, alliance manager for independent software vendors (ISVs) at Mentor Graphics. “We’re under constant pressure to develop hardware and software design solutions that allow them to do this quickly and cost-effectively.” Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays a prominent role in allowing Mentor Graphics to perform simulations of new designs and customize the workflow of getting products to market.

Because of the strategic importance and complexity of these deployments based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Mentor Graphics required premiere support from Red Hat that could deliver an added layer of value above the standard support provided with a Red Hat subscription. “Our internal engineers are technically very sophisticated, and we do all the first-line troubleshooting and problem solving internally,” said Rochette. “When we run into something we can’t solve ourselves, we need immediate help, and we need it to begin at a very high level.”

SOLUTION
To get the expanded support it required, Mentor Graphics turned to the Red Hat Technical Account Management (TAM) service. This value-added offering was designed for Red Hat customers that desire a highly personalized support relationship with Red Hat. By subscribing to the TAM service, companies get a primary technical contact at Red Hat who works with them to understand their ongoing technology requirements and provide trusted advice that enables them to optimize Red Hat Enterprise Linux for their critical systems. As a companies’ single point of accountability within Red Hat when faced with mission-critical issues, the TAM tailors support for customers’ unique technical and business environments; acts as an advocate for them within Red Hat; and facilitates collaboration with other vendors.

BENEFITS
“Mentor Graphics has had a TAM subscription now for a little more than three years, and we find it a useful and valuable resource,” said Rochette.

For starters, he gets direct access to a dedicated senior Red Hat support engineer who participates in bi-weekly review calls to assess the status of Mentor Graphics’ Red Hat Enterprise Linux implementation. Whenever an urgent issue arises between calls, Rochette gets an immediate response. “I can’t think of a time when we didn’t get a phone call or email back right away,” he said. And the quality of the support is excellent, he said. “Because our TAM knows our technical environment as well as our business needs, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time we call. Any question that our TAM can’t answer right away is immediately escalated to a senior technologist within Red Hat.”

The TAM relationship is also a proactive one. Rochette gets advanced exposure and access to Red Hat’s technology and development plans that he can leverage to make strategy decisions. He also gets early notice of other things that could impact his Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployment, such as beta testing of new features and pending release of bug patches. A subscription to Red Hat’s monthly TAM newsletter also keeps him abreast of developments within Red Hat that could impact Mentor Graphics.

Perhaps most critically, having a TAM allows Mentor Graphics to speed time-to-market of its EDA products. “If an issue is impacting our ability to complete our code development and release, the relationship with our TAM relationship is critical to timely resolution of it,” said Rochette.

“For any company that needs an additional level of support above the standard offering, Red Hat’s TAM service is the answer,” said Rochette. “In addition to providing us with a great opportunity to build a deeper relationship with Red Hat, it enables us to leverage Red Hat products for greater competitive advantage by resolving issues rapidly and speeding time to market of new products.”