Darren wrote:
> So its cost me just $600 per year on average, I spend much
> more on office app's and the like that sell in millions, not
> just 1000's, and there support is all but non existent, MS
> would like to charge me $60, just to talk to them, and the
> only calls I've made are to report bugs.
Hey, Darren, did it ever occur to you that maybe you are not demanding
enough? Why should Altium, MS, or anyone else give free support for their
products if you and others don't expect them to? Some of us are tired of
software vendors disavowing responsibility for supporting their products.
What do we do to display our discontent? We complain and we don't upgrade,
that's what. We certainly don't pay to report bugs.
I agree that at a certain point a vendor has to stop supporting old stuff.
But the product should work as advertised, and support should not be
dropped until it does so. Once the advertised functionality works, the old
product should be supported by a web-based knowledge base and archived
service packs, in perpetuity. Web-based support of old products has very
low marginal cost to the vendor - all they have to do is have a website
(which they already have) with the files available for download.
BTW, Darren, if you want to save some money on office software, try
OpenOffice. It's free. And reporting bugs in OpenOffice is free, too ;-)
Best regards,
Ivan Baggett
Bagotronix Inc.
website: www.bagotronix.com
Darren wrote:
All,
On the other side of the coin, now ppl who choose to use
pirated software don't get the full support that they
have in the past for free. That means that there will be
less traffic as these users often don't take the time to
learn the product (pay for courses, read the manuals etc)
So now the real registered (paying) users will get more
access to the Altium staff, and there are many on the list,
I have counted at least 81 different Altium staff names.
As for 99SE, how do you expect a company to give this sort
of support forever, somewhere along the way they need to
make some money to stay in business, with all the comments
about costs, I see it as very cheap, I think one licence
has cost me about $3k since I bought Protel99 around 5 years
ago.
So its cost me just $600 per year on average, I spend much
more on office app's and the like that sell in millions, not
just 1000's, and there support is all but non existent, MS
would like to charge me $60, just to talk to them, and the
only calls I've made are to report bugs.
$600 odd a year for the new features for me is not a big deal
at all, they have added many features, some I use now, some
I'm yet to use. But I'm also getting free SP's and now Altium
are planing to release these every couple of months.
I'm a small business, and only use AD for a small percentage
of time, anyone that users it full time, should have no problem
with these costs. AutoCAD, and a few other products have ended
there upgrade path on products only 3 years old, this seems to
be the new model. With AutoCAD I will just use my 2002 version
as it does all I need for now, I don't expect support groups
or service packs.
Most other EDA co's would never offer this service, and maybe
Altium should charge maintenance just like them, but I'm very
glad they don't.
Regards,
Darren Moore
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