If ATS actually does generate revenue, it will not be used to hire more engineers and testers. It will be used to line the investors' pockets and hire useless but highly paid tiers of upper and middle management who add nothing to the product yet subtract significantly from profits. Trust me, I know from whence I speak.
But ideally greed will be punished by the free market. As someone stated previously, customer participation in this model actually promotes bad software. There *ARE* competitive packages out there. If you have the choice, go buy something reasonable like EWB for $1500 and let go of the irrational attachment. I didn't start using Protel until earlier this year, but by all accounts it was once a useful EDA package in its day, warts and all. IMO it's way too big for its own britches, and if it were my decision I'd use something else. Generally speaking, simple robust software solutions tend to degrade as they are expanded. This is driven by the marketing tendency to add features without considering the underlying structures and patterns. Application software begins life as a tightly focused specific solution, matures into a "complete" solution, then ages and dies while attempting to be everything yet actually excelling at little, and overwhelming the poor user's ability to manage and use it. The sticky problem is that as the user base grows and ages, it tolerates more and greater inefficiency because they think it's "too painful" to change to a newer system. The paradigm shift occurs when the competition offers a better optimized solution at an attractive buy-in cost. Consider a few historical cases: dBase/foxBase, Lotus/Excel, WordPerfect/Word. (Note: Excel and Word peaked prior to their integration into MS Office.) Again, corporate greed and sloth will be punished by a free market. Unless of course you have 92% market share and the DOJ/FTC in your pocket like some *really* big software companies. Darryl Newberry Freedom Scientific 2850 SE Market Pl Stuart FL 34997 (561) 223-6443 tel (561) 223-6413 fax http://www.freedomscientific.com All information contained or disclosed herein is proprietary and confidential to Freedom Scientific. Opinions expressed by the sender do not necessarily reflect Freedom Scientific corporate policy. -----Original Message----- From: Tony Karavidas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 13:00 To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Altium Total Support (ATS) The only thing I have to say contrary to what I've said already is that I would "jump on board" if it meant Protel would gain significant features in a relatively short amount of time. If this money was used to hire more s/w engineers and testers it would be worthwhile. Tony * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/proteledaforum@techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
