P.S. RE ATS: Just an added note... A very successful friend of mine gave me some advice a while a go... 'If you want to be a successful, don't be afraid to tell your secrets..... and always give good service...' He used to be the most productive new guy on the assembly line and had his work done correctly, way before the others... they suggested he keep his secrets to himself and not be so productive because it would do them all out of a job... He refused to agree with that because he wanted to give good service... Now he's a boss and they are gone... Lesson being, if you make things better for your customers they will come back to you and reward you over and over... where if you get greedy and back away from or cut good service... you will loose what market share you have and moreover you the reputation will prevent you from getting other clients... Every Cad company I have known that got greedy went out of business or is struggling ... I think that says it all... Remember Scicards, Applicon, Intergraph, Cadnetix, Orcad, Callay, Tellisys, EE Designer 3, PROCAD .... shall I go on?
I don't use Mentor, Cadence, or PADS, Accel or P-CAD, Zuken Redac's Cadstar, because of the cost per seat, learning curve, poor editor interface, and the maintenance cost per year...(not that I wouldn't use them if there was no choice)... I made the mistake of buying PADS (because there was a user base in San Diego) and what a nightmare... never got use out of the Spectraa Auto Router that we paid through the nose for... They need a novel size book for all the software bugs and workarounds (which they don't tell you about in the demos)...I spent hours and hours on the phone to the tech reps who were not always there but were out doing demo's with the Sales guy.... (I was not a happy camper) The Main reason Protel was attractive was the cost per seat, ease of use, and low maintenance.... (and if they would fix the bugs in a timely manner the market would open to them just by word of mouth) If CAD Companies drive up the cost of electronic product development it makes America less competitive in the world markets and at home... They should cut the salesman's commissions and recurring costs to A REASONABLE PERCENTAGE and provide good working product, and give good service.. They will be the only ones left after the smoke clears... Join the other Cad companies in their greed... end up in the graveyard with them... Its just common sense. This stuff always seems to happen when small companies make the transition to High overhead large companies.. Top heavy sales staffs, and support groups that are under funded...oh well my 2 cents worth.... <soap-box mode off> Bill Brooks (back to designing PCB's with Protel) -----Original Message----- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 10:12 AM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] ATS Perhaps they have had a 'mole' from PADS move in to scuttle the Protel company... It's really sounding a lot like what the Pads/Inoveda people have done to their abused users... I think most of us hate PADS and their stinking product upgrade structure... "Oh!.. you want to edit the parts... <grin> that is inside the edit module... fork over more cash"... etc... etc.. - Bill Brooks -----Original Message----- From: Bagotronix Tech Support [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 8:41 AM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] ATS > Screw them all if that's where the s/w world is heading. Windows2000 (and > Office 2000) is pretty damn good and so is Protel (even though the router > isn't close to "state of the art") I, too, refuse to accept the .NET/XP scheme of time-limited remote-deactivated licensing, and the slightly less onerous (but still awful) software maintenance scheme. Microsoft will encounter massive resistance to their new scheme once the public gets stung by it. These strongarm attempts at revenue expansion seem doomed to fail in the face of increased competition from open source software. Let's hope Protel (Altium, whatever they call themselves this week) realize the error of this change too. Some foolish elements must have seized control of Protel. As evidence, I present the following facts: 1) Corporate name change to Altium. In the business world, a name change almost always does a company more harm than good. Why piss away the million$ spent on advertising and building name recognition? 2) Changing the software support model to this new ATS software maintenance monstrosity. Free support was why many folks chose Protel software in the first place. If we had wanted to pay for maintenance, we would have bought some other package. 3) Acquisition of other companies. The acquistion phenomena is purely a business play. It doesn't benefit the Protel product in any way I have seen. If the Altium folks want to play business money games, they should go work for an investment firm instead of a CAD software provider. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Karavidas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 2:31 AM Subject: Re: [PEDA] ATS > Well if you are right, I'm going to be stuck in a 2001 time zone. If Protel > and Microsoft fell off the face of the earth, I would still be able to > successfully: > > 1. Design "stuff" > 2. Write letters > 3. Write emails > 4. Collect money for my work. > 5. Pay my bills > > Screw them all if that's where the s/w world is heading. Windows2000 (and > Office 2000) is pretty damn good and so is Protel (even though the router > isn't close to "state of the art") > > 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
