In my view Tony is right. I was quite astonished also, that there was a new
version of AD that fast. I knew it some weeks before, being beta tester,
but the beta phase was pretty short. I learnt about the upgrade offer until
Dec. 31st by the newsgroup, and had to contact our dealer myself in order
to take advantage of the discount. Marketing could be improved, lol.
Anyway, there are a lot of new features, and, as usual, some of them you
will love, and about others you will say 'so what?'. It depends on your
personal way of using the program. I had an argument with the local sales
guy, who actually asked me for a maintenance contract to answer a question
about the software I just bought. Grrrrr! I told him he must be joking. He
was joking.
I prefer the way Altium handles service packs and upgrades to what other
EDA companies do. Get service packs for a couple of years for free, and
then pay for a major upgrade. By the way, I just paid 12,000 for my
SPECCTRA upgrade. Just an upgrade from V14.2 to V15.5! I had upgraded to
V14.2 some two years ago. Taking into account that they want to charge me
8,000 for annual maintenance (which I refuse), this is still a lot cheaper
than to pay the maintenance fees. I would be happier if they took up the
sales policy of Altium, which would give me service packs for free, and
then let me decide on if I want to buy the upgrade.
Mit freundlichem Gruß
Kind regards
Gisbert Auge
N.A.T. GmbH
www.nateurope.com
"Tony Karavidas"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] An: "Protel EDA Discussion
List" <[email protected]>
onics.com> Kopie:
Gesendet von: Thema: Re: [PEDA] 6.0 ?
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02.01.2006 21:51
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This discussion is really getting old. It happens every time they release a
new version. People bitch and moan about not getting the upgrade for free
while at the same time they bitch and moan about annual maintenance costs
with other EDA software. You can't have it both ways. Either pony up the
money every year like you would with Orcad or PADS or whatever and get the
updates (if they come or not and if you've been following the Orcad camp,
you'll know the changes are miminal). Otherwise stay with Altium knowing
you
don't have to pay any update fees (for bug fixes AND new features) and just
keep using the tool as-is. You should know by now that Atium will give 3 or
4 services packs for "free" and then it's time to pay for the next one.
What's the big surprise? Do you expect them to keep updating the software
for 5 to 10 years with no revenue stream? I'm sure you don't.
Maybe to make people happy, they need to concentrate on purely fixing bugs
in the service packs and not adding ANY features until the bugs are gone.
People would bitch about that too. Some would say "why don't you add this
little cool feature now?" and Altium would have to reply: "It's not our
policy to add any features regardless of simplicity until we have the bugs
fixed in the existing code (regardless of how benign they are). I think
they
have found a good balance of fixing lots of bugs and making the software
quite useable while at the same time giving people new features at no extra
cost. It's sort of like getting a meal for free at a restaurant when the
service has been bad. They are trying to redeem themselves and say yes
we've
had some problems but let this be a token of our appreciation of you as a
customer. You want to eat for free for the rest of your life because
someone
didn't cook your steak right once?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Sapienza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Protel EDA Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: [PEDA] 6.0 ?
> Brad,
>
> Not only am I in the same situation financially speaking, It just seems
as
> an ambush because personally I was expecting SP 5 long before the next
> major upgrade. I can't even get enough upgrade money before the end of
Q1.
> I won't eeven step into the feeling of some of my clients which seem to
be
> interested in a (financially) plannable platform. I can say for sure that
> many are looking at the competitive product. I'll say no more before I
get
> slammed again.
>
> Joe
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brad Velander" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Protel EDA Discussion List" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 11:54 AM
> Subject: RE: [PEDA] 6.0 ?
>
>
> Dennis,
> It is absolutely hilarious that Altium is acting as such a company in
such
> desperate despair and expects us to jump on the same bandwagon. I got a
> telephone message regarding the AD6.0 upgrade sometime between Dec 22nd
> and Dec 29th with the proviso that it was valid until the end of
December.
> Well I was not in the office to take advantage of the offer, it just
> points out their ridiculous lack of real marketing effort.
>
> "Let's call everyone over the Xmas holidays and make them an offer that
> they most likely cannot exercise." Not taking into account anything like
> fiscal planning and budgets. What planet are these guys from, I thought
> Australia was a terrestrial location? Seems it is somewhere off-world but
> definitely not a place where they practice common business practices.
With
> 8+ seats we are supposed to come up with $24K without any prior notice or
> even time within which to propose such an expenditure and receive
> approvals? Crazy, sheer lunacy!
>
> Sincerely,
> Brad Velander
> Senior PCB Designer
> Northern Airborne Technology
> #14 - 1925 Kirschner Road,
> Kelowna, BC, V1Y 4N7.
> tel (250) 763-2329 ext. 225
> fax (250) 762-3374
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dennis Saputelli [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 8:14 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Protel EDA Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [PEDA] 6.0 ?
>
>
>
> yes, i guess the question is:
> is it worth doing ?
>
> ds
>
>
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