Tony... What you said! :) This "Capturing the Low end market" scheme is what made AutoCAD the defacto standard in the mechanical drafting industry.... The other successful approach is to supply the software to the education industry like apple computer did (and Mentor is doing) to get established..... The trick to all of this is not to forget, 'You need to sow the seeds every year if you want to get a harvest in the Fall'. They need to not get greedy... and not think short term... The old saying, 'Give a man a meal and you feed him for a day, teach a man to farm and you feed him and his family and his relatives and his neighbors for life' is so true. This is a much bigger return on investment... and its self sustaining.
It's even better if the software works like it should. I would suggest that they fix the stuff that works poorly in the software before 'giving' it away (planting the seeds), and they will get many more happy converts that will sing the praises of Protel to their friends and relatives and coworkers.... Etc. Free, "word of mouth" advertising will reduce their expense for advertising and save the company a lot of money. Their customers will work for them for free too, because they are able to use the software successfully and easily. What goes around, comes around... Bill Brooks PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D., C.I.I. TITAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION DATRON WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION 3030 Enterprise Court, Vista, CA 92083 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: http://www.dtwc.com/ Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 _______________________________________ Bill Brooks Adjunct Instructor - DT210 PCB Design, RM E13 Palomar College , Trades and Industries Dept. 1440 West Mission Road San Marcos, CA 92069-1487 Tel: (760)744-1150 Ext 5584 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.palomar.edu/ _______________________________________ Member of the San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council Communications Officer, Web Manager http://www.ipc.org/SanDiego/ http://home.fda.net/bbrooks/pca/pca.htm -----Original Message----- From: Tony Karavidas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 9:13 PM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] converting protel schematic to orcad I started to type this email hours ago then thought, nahhh. But what the heck: I agree. Orcad was the 'available' application when I was in college and it sure ended up in a lot of places I worked. (Until Protel came along) I think Altium could dust off one their older windows based schematic editors and the early PCB 2.8 for example and give that away (or make it $99 or $199 or something easy for hobbiest) with or without paid phone support. They could get some money for answering newbie questions and they would 'capture' the low end industry. (like that pun?) Everyone would use Protel in their hobby projects and if any of them ended up needing more capability, they naturally would step up to the REAL Protel because it would load all their current files. I belong to a few electronics based news groups and several people ask "what software do you use?" None of them can afford anything in multi k$, but if they got used to something and then got a job somewhere, they could influence a purchasing decision. The people using these cheap version wouldn't be viable customers anyway, not at this stage in their E-CAD usage. I don't think it would have any negative effect on DXP sales. Tony > -----Original Message----- > From: Joe Sapienza [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 9:44 AM > To: Protel EDA Forum > Subject: Re: [PEDA] converting protel schematic to orcad > > > Ivan I like the way you think > > For some reason I don't even see the standalone schematic as > being available with DXP, I think it's been done away with, > as in only the full boat is available. With the integration > of data and footprints as such I can see why. It's an > interconnectivity thing. > > Any chance you going into politics. > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bagotronix Tech Support" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 12:08 PM > Subject: Re: [PEDA] converting protel schematic to orcad > > > > This is exactly the reason Altium should give away the SCH > for free - > > to > get > > the entire industry thinking "Protel Schematics", instead of "Orcad > > Schematics". Seed the market with free SCH, and they will probably > > buy > PCB. > > > > This would be less work for Altium than writing a > translator to export > Orcad > > schematics, since they already have the SCH written - just break it > > out > into > > a self-contained product. And Altium wouldn't have to worry about > > Orcad breaking a translator by coming out with a new file format. > > Altium could probably whip up a free SCH release in a day or two of > > programmer time. > > > > Besides, if DXP is the great and wonderful thing they say it is, it > > would > be > > a great way to advertise. > > > > Best regards, > > Ivan Baggett > > Bagotronix Inc. > > website: www.bagotronix.com > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Dennis Saputelli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 6:30 PM > > Subject: Re: [PEDA] converting protel schematic to orcad > > > > > > > > > > if you are speaking of exporting to orcad DSN files, as far as i > > > know you cannot do it > > > > > > i have the same problem, everyone wants orcad schematics > > > > > > i have researched translators and come up with nothing either for > > > love or money > > > > > > if you find a solution, please let us all know > > > > > > protel does a reasonably good job of reading their files, > they just > > > won't write them > > > > > > the will write the older SDT files, but there are too > many issues to > > > bother > > > > > > Dennis Saputelli > > > > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
