So Who Is Altium Buying?

[EEVblog]

They raised 44.8M to "assist with the pursuit of Altium’s growth"
http://t.co/Hk8fjdPNJ0
http://t.co/rqVmHNadLL

[DerekG]

They raised 44.8M to "assist with the pursuit of Altium’s growth"

Or maybe to just keep Altium alive. As more & more design work leaves for the shores of China & India, I see a hard road ahead for Altium. Particularly as the users in these countries tend to pay bugger all for their software.

Maybe the $44.8 million will be used to track down & prosecute these users ............. or maybe to encrypt the software so that it cannot be used unless you are logged into the Altium servers.

[EEVblog]

Or maybe to just keep Altium alive.

Doubt it. They were doing just fine financially.

Maybe the $44.8 million will be used to track down & prosecute these users ............. or maybe to encrypt the software so that it cannot be used unless you are logged into the Altium servers.

Altium tried to fix the China piracy thing and failed, so they won't try that again.
They have stated the money is to be used for the market plans in the invest presentation. That means moving into the low end space and pushing further into the high end space.

[DerekG]

They have stated the money is to be used for the market plans in the invest presentation. That means moving into the low end space

$44.8 million (or part of) for this.

As Liam Neeson said in the film Taken ........ "Good Luck" ........... and we know what happened there.

and pushing further into the high end space.

Again, all I would say is "Good Luck".

At least Altium have realised that if they don't push hard in the marketplace their market share & revenues will fall.

As I've said before, pcb design software is a mature market now ............... a bit like Microsoft Office. If you have Office 2007 there is no impending reason to upgrade to Office 2014.

The same goes for Altium 14. It has a few nice features over say Altium 6.9 but it is also now filled up with more bloatware.

Is Altium 14 more productive? Hardly, I would say.

[ludzinc]

Received this invite to an Altium Roadshow today:

link

They are advertising iCD (in Circuit Design) and Desktop EDA as 3rd party plugins.  Maybe they want to buy these guys up (or is this old news?).

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

WARNING: pure speculation

Maybe they ramped up the good news, did the placement at $2.80, ramp down with bad news and then do a share buyback.
This will be profitable for the investor(s) who already held a lot of stock. (CEO), but wont achieve much else.

BTW the placement investors are probably the Australian superannuation funds, who are controlled by people who don't actually own the money they invest with. 
They tend to be easy pickings for smart money shifters, such as investment Banks, using CDOs, managed funds and placements.
The only losers are the general public. 

[Wilksey]

Maybe Altium would be better off spending the money on making a secure app if they are worried about piracy.

I'll be the first to admit I have used pirated software, mainly due to the fact I wanted to work at home on some things that we have a license for in work, and I am not ashamed to admit to making some of these applications "work" when they are not available elsewhere.

Without going into too much detail, to make Altium 14.3.14 "work" for example, you change 1, yes 1, byte in a file.
And it has been the same for a while now, I mean you don't get access to the vault etc, but you have to admit they are not doing much to prevent piracy!

And as people have mentioned, the change from version 6 to 14 for example is negligible, so chances are the old software will work fine if they do decide to use OTA activation techniques.

Look at the likes of Eagle or Diptrace, yes they get "fixed" but rarely do you need the features of the full version for hobby stuff, for those who use Altium day to day and want to design something at home, they have no real option to either use a pirated copy or use a different package.

Something as simple as releasing a free version might cut down a lot of the piracy as Altium is seen as "industry de facto" people want it, and for all it's quirks it does work, I use Eagle and Altium primarily (at work, yes, licensed).

[Rufus]

Maybe Altium would be better off spending the money on making a secure app if they are worried about piracy.

They wouldn't and they have known that for years. Spend money on dongles or bought in licence management packages etc and someone will still find the 100 or 1000 bytes that need changing to bypass the protection - it is pretty much pure waste.

Additionally they understood that these unofficial free evaluation copies didn't cost them much in sales and provided advertising and training which might gain them future sales. That is probably no longer true in China but there is little they can do about it there.

Light security to keep honest customers honest (companies not using more copies than they are licensed for in ignorance or by rule bending) is worth while. They have also tried to offer internet services to which access can be restricted but the value they can add is limited.

Something as simple as releasing a free version might cut down a lot of the piracy

Again they care about making money not piracy, how does spending money developing another package and giving it away make them money? It will actually cost them a few sales of the full package.

I am still guessing at what Altium are trying to do with the free package. It has to be a loss-leader for something. Paid for more capable version or some kind of paid for services I don't know. I was surprised to hear it isn't going to be a cut down version of the full AD package because if it isn't very similar it looses value as a leader to the full package. What they are going to spend the raised money on is also a mystery to me.

[zapta]

An old wisdom say 'raise money when you can, not when you need'.  If their stock/valuation is high, it's a good time to raise money with limited stock dilution.

[Wilksey]

It is true that there is not much in the way of difference between changing 1 or 100 bytes, and if they truly don't care about people doing that then they are more stupid than we give them credit for, but my point about releasing a free version cutting down piracy is still valid I believe.  I mean they are not going to run any polls or anything and I can only speak for a handful of people but even 1 or 2 people for instance is cutting down, and not only that, having a free version would help introduce people to their software.

People only want the basics, and a lot of people come from other packages so know their way around it's just learning how Alitum specifically does things, which really doesn't require a training package! Just a good users guide.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

I did hear some gossip from somebody close to the action a few years ago.
One guy from Eastern Europe hacked their new version within 2 weeks of release, and let them know.
Altium fixed the flaw and then he hacked their patched version in a month IIRC.
He said he would like a job with them so the boss gave him a task that was something like reverse engineering their competitors binary format.
He apparently did this faster than the boss could have done it, so got the job.

It is probably quite hard to protect their app.
Maybe they should sell through Steam/Valve.
 They seem to do it well.

[Gribo]

The big EDA vendors don't really care if someone pirates a copy for hobby/home use, 99% of those will not buy a copy. They do care when a company buys 2 seats and uses 10, and these customers will not modify even one bit so they will not loose support or get sued.

[EEVblog]

I am still guessing at what Altium are trying to do with the free package. It has to be a loss-leader for something. Paid for more capable version or some kind of paid for services I don't know.

No need to guess, I can tell you.
They want to dominate the low end of the market, and to do that need a package that draws everyone in (the free bit), and then charge reasonable prices to upgrade the capability.
They are not in it for charity, and it's not a loss-leader for anything, they expect to make a lot of money from it, or at the very least pay for the development and get people tied into the Altium brand.

I was surprised to hear it isn't going to be a cut down version of the full AD package because if it isn't very similar it looses value as a leader to the full package.

I was too, and originally said that would be a stupid move on their part.
I was basing that comment on the fact they seem to have a hard enough time finding resources to make AD work properly, that devoting already scare resources to maintaining a separate package would be silly.
I still think that, but I do understand their desire to make it much easier to use with a new UI aimed at beginners and low end users. And their opinion that AD is not a package that would be suitable for the low end market in terms of usability.

[/quote]
What they are going to spend the raised money on is also a mystery to me.
[/quote]

They have to buy someone, it's the only reason why investment companies would give them the money.
Investors don't care about dreams and hiring extra employees to make a better product, they care about acquisitions and expanding the company that way.

[nctnico]

Maybe Altium would be better off spending the money on making a secure app if they are worried about piracy.

I'll be the first to admit I have used pirated software, mainly due to the fact I wanted to work at home on some things that we have a license for in work, and I am not ashamed to admit to making some of these applications "work" when they are not available elsewhere.

IMHO every serious business just buys the software. Every other install is a potential locked-in customer. In Asia they are turning the thumbs screws on companies using pirated software. BTW I use pirated versions of software exclusively because they are much easier to install and move to a new PC than the original version (which I have somewhere in the shrink wrap). I really can't be bothered with activations, dongles, etc so if there is no pirated version of a piece of software I won't buy it all.

[Wilksey]

Well, I don't exclusively seek that kind of software, and choices certainly are not made if a unorthodox version is available or not, but I can see what you mean about dongles etc, we had some software which the dongle got damaged and they wanted to charge us almost the same for a new dongle than a new license would cost, as we had 3 or 4 dongles at the time I just used a sentinel dongle copier the "broken" one had a dodgy usb connector and I copied it onto a emulator and it has worked fine on the emulator for years!

I don't use the "home" software for creating PCB's for personal use, I have another machine with other software (licensed or free) for that.
I remember the days where if you had a corporate Anti Virus license you could install it on workers home PC's using the same key, those days are gone in the pound rolling eyes of the sales guys!

I couldn't afford Altium for home use and it is overkill for what we use it for in work and it is not much more intuitive that some other cheaper packages, so I am quite looking forward to what this "free" version will offer.

[tautech]

They want to dominate the low end of the market, and to do that need a package that draws everyone in (the free bit), and then charge reasonable prices to upgrade the capability.

I do understand their desire to make it much easier to use with a new UI aimed at beginners and low end users. And their opinion that AD is not a package that would be suitable for the low end market in terms of usability.

Any change to the known UI would be a grave error IMO.
While AD does require a significant learning curve, learn it, get used to it and use the leading industry standard package available.

[nctnico]

I wouldn't call Altium the industry leading package. There is still lots of Orcad and Eagle installed and bought. I have used Altium in the past but I found it very cumbersome to use. If I had to buy a CAD package again I'd choose Orcad again.

[Gunb]

I wouldn't call Altium the industry leading package. There is still lots of Orcad and Eagle installed and bought. I have used Altium in the past but I found it very cumbersome to use. If I had to buy a CAD package again I'd choose Orcad again.

Yes. Meanwhile Altium 14 is overcrowded with features and menus. And they've changed basic steps that people can't learn from the tutorials. I can't get rid off the feeling that the management wants to present new features in no time to make money at the expense of ease of use and reliability. Too many bugs, obsolete manuals and tutorials.

Hope they change their policy soon.

[Cside]

what's an altium?
Im using logowriter for my cad work

[Smokey]

What's a CAD?

I hand tape all my boards!  Speaking of, I need to place another order with Bishop Graphics for more little adhesive via dots!

[ElektroQuark]

What're boards?

[Smokey]

What're boards?

Fact!