On Wed, 12 Dec 2001 11:02:58 -0500, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > >I'm getting a bad feeling about all this, I'm afraid. >
Abd, You are an eternal optimist re: Protel (Altium)... ;-) I was wondering when you'd say this as it was my first reaction to the initial ATS announcement. I've been down this road at least a half dozen times with other EDA and software development tool companies. So far Altium is proceeding according to the "script" so many tool companies seem to follow. I came to Protel from Orcad. At one time (especially back in the DOS SDT days) they had a huge number of design seats. There support was incredible -- call them up, talk to a "real" engineer, maybe even one of the programmers and get a bug fix in a day or two. Then they went public, hired "professional" managers and alienated a lot of customers with similar tactics that Altium is now introducing via ATS/price increases. Of course, being bought by Cadence didn't help matters either. The number one gripe I heard from Orcad users was "What the heck am I paying maintenance for -- I didn't get any version updates and they didn't fix the bugs!". That's my biggest fear with ATS -- that we'll be paying for version updates and bug fixes and never get them -- after all, they will already have our money and can/will promise "the next release is just around the corner". So far I've not been impressed with the past performance concerning bug fixes and version updates. I suspect a lot of Protel98 and Protel99(SE) sales came from Orcad converts who felt abused by Orcad (like I did). If Protel thinks it won't happen to them, well... Back to work, keeping a low profile and waiting to see how this all shakes out. Matt Pobursky Maximum Performance Systems * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
