At 09:49 AM 11/3/01 +0100, Georg Beckmann wrote: >Altium now sells protel and p-cad. What might be the sense of >having two systems for the same purpose for sale ? > >What is Altium standing for ? > >For protel or p-cad. ? >Is the next upgrade a pro-cad or p-tel, or will one line >be killed. ?
Officially, Altium reps have stated that all lines will continue. It's not just Protel and PCAD but also CAMtastic, the Traxmaker suite, Tasking, and I don't know what else. So there are *three* schematic/printed circuit lines. They serve three slightly different markets. Traxmaker etc. is schematic, simulation, pc design for the student/hobbyist market. Low priced, even free for some modest version. Protel is a professional-level tool for engineers; watch for increasing emphasis on simulation and the like. PCAD is for printed-circuit design specialists, the kind that usually work captive for large companies. It has sophisticated tools such as footprints that alter according to such things as wave direction. Protel's competitors predicted disaster from the acquisition of Accel and attempted to scare PCAD users into thinking that they would be abandoned. Instead, Protel brought the full-suite PCAD price down, getting rid of the nickle-and-dime-you-to-death pricing structure that also afflicts PADS users, and they dumped the dongle. Did you hear the cheering? In fact, PCAD is now priced at only 25% more than Protel. But that does not include simulation and some of the other Protel niceties. What I expect are tools that can be shared by all the programs. PCAD may be brought into the Client-Server architecture, and an autorouter, for example, might serve both programs. Obviously, it is more difficult to write such an autorouter, but as the programs converge in certain ways, especially with regard to internal database structure, that difficulty will pass. One possibility is that, in the end, there will be a single program with different user interfaces. Cross-grade will be easy, i.e., cheap (the more expensive suite would obviously involve an upgrade price, and perhaps an even higher upgrade price if one wants to keep the original license, but not punitively high), and file translation will be straightforward. We don't want to lose our familiar Protel interface, and the PCAD people don't want to lose the value of their own intellectual inventory, but we certainly don't need different display engines except as we now have display options, i.e., a single engine that might work in some different ways. We don't need multiple autorouters, even though there might be a one-button version and a highly steerable version. Etc., etc. If Altium truly maintains the product lines as thoroughly distinct, not sharing code, I would join the competitors in predicting disaster. But I don't think that is going to happen. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abdulrahman Lomax Easthampton, Massachusetts USA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
