Altium (Protel) Moves Global HQ to China

Well, you'd want to proofread it to the hilt, and go over it so that it matches the company's style, that sort of thing. You wouldn't want somebody blithely posting something like "Are product xyz is awsum dude!!!!!! I never seen such a usefull part!!!!!!! Id recomend this for ne1 to use in they're produx!!!!!!"

;-)

Cheers! Rich

Just did a google on linkedin for altium employees, seems more than a few including some of the architects have ended their employment in april. Furthermore a lot of them have the "looking for work" tag set.

I'm not sure who they are planning on moving over there, but experience shows that most people shipped off to india or china from US/AU/EU return home within the first 6-9 months.

So I guess this time next year altium will either show signs of being on track or filling for bankruptcy.

I've used Altium a few years ago but I was under the impression the major part was written in India. The user interface does not make any sense. I already needed the manual to start a new design.

The problem with Altium Designer is that the people that develop it, test it and ship it, have themselves never done any kind of real EDA - Its obvious in the features they focus on that they have little grasp of the problem space when compared to the offerings of their competitors in the same price range.

I believe at this point Pulsonix would be the best path if people are looking to upgrade or purchase new licenses. There is no guarantee that Altium as a company will be around this time next year, so who knows what will happen to multi-year subscriptions and promised upgrade cycles.

They appear to spend MUCH more time thinking about OOP and database programming than electronic design.

They appear to be moving away from true perpetual licenses, so even if they are still around..

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

One of the few companies where it seems that real circuit deigners work on the CAD software is Cadsoft. In the forums it happens that someone asks about a circuit problem and then ocasionally one of the Cadsoft guys has the answer.

Then they'd see major losses in the consultant's part of their customer base. Those guys can usually only gradually glide into retirement and the CAD has to keep working until Alzheimer's or something else strikes. One would not be willing to pay full license fees every year in semi-retirement. I would never agree to such a "deal".

I think it may be a bit premature to tell. I'm not connected with Altium at all. They are running a loss, but mostly because of the way they book their revenue, $13M in deferred revenue, typically from yearly licenses pre-purchased (and $4M in cash). They may have trouble finding local talent, I've been there before and see 1) a strategy to lower cost 2) connect with a faster growing country. Obviously competitors will start to create FUD like the postings here that they wont be around. I doubt that will happen. Worse case, they get bought. I see no indication that product development is slowing or will slow. Heck they just were explaining on Chalk Talk how their new capabilities help integrate IP into the process. And their view is a 'system view' which is steadily being understood. Just my opinion.

Cheers! Rich

I was talking to their reps at a local trade show last Thursday... it seems to be some kind of thing where the full original libraries are held on their servers so you would be able to access the existing components in your designs but not components you'd not used before (unless you are up to date on the 'subscriptions' which are now quite a substantial part of the 'purchase' price). I hope I misunderstood and it's not that way. That means that they can hold for ransom all the cost of learning their system (and let's face it, all EDA program suites are quirky and have a fairly steep learning curve). Orcad is not looking so bad.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

This doesn't look too good:

AFAIK the stock was around AU$5 a decade ago.

If they do that then I'd wager that this would be their end. A slow one maybe, but I can't imagine people putting up with that. Just picture this: You sit on an 11h flight to Asia, want to do some design work and you can't because you can't access their servers from up there. What were they smoking?

I am using it right now. Can't say that I like it. It ain't what it used to be in the SDT days.

Yes, but that was before the internet bubble collapsed. I think Altium will be around for many years. They have a big user base and they have been around for decades (remember Protel?). If they get their act together they will be back on track. Moving to China is not a bad idea since most electronics development happens over there and they can't compete with Eagle.

ay

=3DALU

I disagree. Altium could crush eagle in a matter of months if they so chose. Unfortunately they long ago abandoned the low end market, and even lost focus on the core PCB/SCH market, what with the "turning electronics design upside down" campaign were they made the PCB tool the optional extra bit.

Dave.

I had to laugh when I first saw that one. According to Altium, all electronics is digital.

And then they started to belive their own bullshit.

I think you underestimate the learning curve of Altium. I found it a very complex product and I wouldn't even consider it unless I was creating diagrams and PCBs all day. I never worked with Eagle so I can't compare but a 'low end' product usually is easier / more straightforward to work with.

Like I said: if Altium gets their act together they could keep their customer base. A few years ago a lot of people where moving to Altium. There must be a reason why they abandoned why Altium choose to get out of the low end market. IIRC you could get the whole package for the same price Cadence charged for Orcad capture + PCB (without autorouter).

Sorry, Dave, but I really doubt that. The pricing difference between Eagle and Altium for guys like me who only need a schematic editor is about an order of magnitude. If Altium would break out the schematic editor maybe they could match it but given their financial condition that could cut into bone. Plus Eagle now has the financial backing of Farnell, not exactly a small enterprise.

What Cadsoft did clearly wrong IMHO was not realizing how important a hierarchy would have been for their sales success, and their ads were lacking. So it all remained more geared towards hobbyists. But V6 supposedly brings a hierarchy so that could all change. Then I'll buy the upgrade.

(sorry, can only see your posts when someone sans google domain answers)

ROFL! They were kidding, weren't they? But even over 25 years back at our university a prof said that we won't need to pay too much attention to transistors and discrete stuff since it'll all be ICs soon. Many students believed that nonsense. I didn't, and that provides me with work now :-D

...and I thought Cadence/OrCAD was bad.

Rikard. It would be informative if you would declare who you work for. One of Altium's competitors, perhaps?

The people that develop. test and ship Altium Designer actually have quite a good grasp of the problem space. I'd suggest that we design many more production boards in-house than any of the competitors you are alluding to. All of the hardware we sell (NanoBoards, daughter board, peripheral boards, etc) are fully designed in-house using Altium Designer.

And I can assure you, Altium and Altium Designer will most certainly be around this time next year, and for many years to come. Moving the HQ to China (we will remain an Australian company with a substantial office in Australia) is a way of assuring this.

For the record, I am product manager with Altium Limited.

...

I don't get the impression that anyone at WestDev (the guys behind Pulsonix) are actual hardware designers either.

But hey, Pulsonix did finally add scripting support a few months ago now, after years of it being a very popular user request!

I suspect Joerg is correct that, if Eagle gets around to adding hierarchy support -- and perhaps changes the user interface to something a little closer to what most people "expect" these days --, they could end up becoming one of the last major players in low- to mid-end schematic capture/PCB layout tools.

---Joel

If that's the case, I suggest that instead of ragging on your potential customers that you listen to them. *I* for one would not have *my* data held hostage. Not going to happen. Never! As much as I'd like to dump OrCAD, I'd never willingly go to Altium.