Altium Designer Pricing

On 4/3/2014 10:41 AM, Joerg wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:
>> On 03/04/2014 10:51, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>>
>>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>>
>>> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>>
>>> Anyone use it?  Have a recent version?  Know how much it costs?
>>>
>>> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>>>
>>
>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>
>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>> whilst I was working with it.
>
>
> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
> software for me.

Same thing happens with Thunderbird... it can go whacky until the 
connection is restored.

-- 

Rick

akrauter23@gmail.com writes:

> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep
> in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how
> much misinformation is found on these forums.

You are replying to a post a year and a half old (which you snipped)...

It is around $10k US, about £7k in the UK when first year maintenance is
included.

AIUI:

There are various kinds of licensing system. There is a floating one
which does require internet connection but lets anyone use it anywhere
as long as two people do not want to use it at the same time.

Then there is a "stand-alone" type which is a license file that can be
moved from machine to machine. This does not need an internet
connection.




-- 

John Devereux

On 22/09/2015 03:32, akrauter23@gmail.com wrote:
> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how much misinformation is found on these forums.

I often use Altium, but not from choice.  It's not very user-friendly 
and makes simple things complicated.

I suspect it benefits from the old, "Nobody got sacked for buying IBM" 
trope, and of course, people will always defend their decision if 
they've spent a lot of money.


Cheers
-- 
Syd

Syd Rumpo <usenet@nononono.co.uk> writes:

> On 22/09/2015 03:32, akrauter23@gmail.com wrote:
>> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep
>> in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how
>> much misinformation is found on these forums.
>
> I often use Altium, but not from choice.  It's not very user-friendly
> and makes simple things complicated.

Yeah, I just bought it for my company and I am still deeply ambivalent
about it. Kicad is *so* close now, and it looks like it is on a really
good path for the future.

> I suspect it benefits from the old, "Nobody got sacked for buying IBM"
> trope, and of course, people will always defend their decision if
> they've spent a lot of money.

Yes I think so. Although for me it's pretty much my money... 


-- 

John Devereux

On 22-Sep-15 10:32 AM, akrauter23@gmail.com wrote:
> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how much misinformation is found on these forums.
>


IIRC - Last year it was about $12k Australian for a single seat.

We didn't buy!

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 19:00:30 +0800, Oltimer <nup@nup.com> wrote:

>On 22-Sep-15 10:32 AM, akrauter23@gmail.com wrote:
>> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how much misinformation is found on these forums.
>>
>
>
>IIRC - Last year it was about $12k Australian for a single seat.
>
>We didn't buy!

One thing about EDA software is that the price is very negotiable,
especially if you want more than one seat. For a half dozen, offer
them half price. For hundreds of seats, I've been told that prices can
be ten per cent of list.

rickman wrote:


>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>> whilst I was working with it.
I use Protel 99SE, and it is pretty good.  There are a few well-known bugs, 
and it is pretty easy to avoid triggering them.  The design rules check 
(including layout vs. schematic)  seems bulletproof.  I've done maybe 300 
boards with it.  Not sure what Altium Designer offers, other than making 
channelized designs a bit easier.

A guy sent me a Kicad design, and I tried it.  While it works, I think it 
has a LONG way to go to even match Protel 99SE.  But, it really shows 
promise, so I am hoping it at least gets close. I don't know how much longer 
I can keep P99SE working.  It does work fine on XP under a virtual machine.

Maybe it is just my vast unfamiliarity with Kicad, and most of what I need 
really is already in there.  But, it seemed to require a LOT of clicking on 
icons, where I usually use keyboard shortcuts in P99SE.  I have created a 
bunch of my own custom key bindings in P99SE, put common objects on the 
schematic toolbars, etc.

Jon

On 4/4/2014 3:59 PM, Neon John wrote:
>
> I very much want to see KiCAD come up to professional standards and
> with the corporate backing, it probably will.  My only problem is that
> we have so much intellectual property in Eagle format that I'm kinda
> tied to it.

So what about KiCAD is lacking?

-- 

Rick

On 4/4/2014 12:38 PM, Joerg wrote:
> Spehro Pefhany wrote:
>> On Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:42:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Does it work across borders? Or even oceans?
>>
>> It would depend on how you set up the license server. Usually the
>> license server is only visible on the LAN, but I'm sure any competent
>> IT person could (maybe even I could) set up a secure VPN to tunnel
>> through the firewall. You'd probably want that anyway if you're doing
>> real development work at multiple sites or off-site.
>>
>
> I've had a support group from a major and very reputable IT company
> trying to get that going for me. All in all it cost me almost 10h and it
> did not work. I did not bill my client for that time but it sure was
> aggravating. So I like to keep things simple, and Eagle does keep it
> simple. Installation on a new PC takes less than five minutes and there
> is no fuss with license servers.

Why Eagle rather than any of the many open source packages?

-- 

Rick

Den fredag den 4. april 2014 kl. 21.59.40 UTC+2 skrev Neon John:
> On Thu, 3 Apr 2014 16:56:43 -0500, "Tim Williams"
> <tmoranwms@charter.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> >For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people 
> >use it at all.  Even ameteurs because there's a free version.  They whine 
> >all day!  Let alone actually doing any real work in it.  Almost as bad as 
> >gEDA!
> 
> Nothing is worse than gEDA!!!!!
> 
> Eagle is awful when you first encounter it.  I loaded and deleted it
> about 3 or 4 times before I finally spent some time with it as part of
> my evaluation of PCB CAD packages for our company.
> 
> The key is, you have to learn to think like a German which is very
> very different than the rest of the world.  Once that's done, Eagle is
> quite easy to use and one can be very productive.  There are very few
> features that I have ever desired that Eagle doesn't have.  Library
> management is probably the worst aspect.  For what I'm doing I'm quite
> satisfied with Eagle.
> 
> I very much want to see KiCAD come up to professional standards and
> with the corporate backing, it probably will.  My only problem is that
> we have so much intellectual property in Eagle format that I'm kinda
> tied to it.
> 

I've been playing with the latest Kicad http://kicad-pcb.org/download/
and it seems very good, the new interactive router is like magic 

I think kicad can import almost everything eagle

-Lasse