Aart J. de Geus
Analyst · Mahesh Sanganeria of RBC Capital Markets
Well, obviously, every year is a little bit different, although we enter, typically, with the same level of confidence, and then it's full speed ahead on evolving through the year. What was different last year, we had made a large set of acquisitions, and so there was a high degree of emphasis on the integration, making sure that the transition for the customers would work well. This year, we're entering '14 with having made a large number of investments in R&D over the last, actually, more than 18 months, and integration of technologies acquired. And so it's going to be a fair degree of focus on advancing the introduction of new capabilities that will be announced throughout the year and, I think, will make a major impact on the customers. Just to clarify a little bit more about how I look at the semiconductor market, I cannot really say that our customers have changed or are dramatically more or less cautious. I'm just observing the number of years of, let's say, mitigated growth in semiconductors with an increase in complexity. What that brings about is a fairly high dynamic among the customers on how are they competing. In general, that is called uncertainty. In practice, it's called opportunity for us because if we can help them, in that situation, do better, we add real value. And by the way, it's interesting, you mentioning memories, because we've actually done quite well in that domain. And you're absolutely correct, the price -- that segment grew, but it grew mostly because prices went up. And as you remember, it went all the way as bad as one of the fabs burning down and, immediately, the market growing more. So those dynamics are beyond our control. But what we do have impact on is that they, too, are driving technology towards the systemic complexity end, meaning not just make the transistors smaller, but make, actually, the memories much more complex. And that is very interesting to us because, again, many of our system tools, even some of our IP and, certainly, our digital tools are highly applicable to that evolution. So, in general, we're looking at a very dynamic market that, hopefully, will attract more money. But for right now, we're in a good position.