So Who Is Altium Buying?

[EEVblog]

http://www.eevblog.com/2014/09/05/so-who-is-altium-buying/

[koko79]

Could it be a product which not only fills some Altium gaps but already has a user base of Cadence, Mentor and Zuken users?
The only thing right now that stands out in that regard is Downstream who sell the Blueprint PCB Documentation and CAM350 DFM tools.
Mentor has Valor for DFM but it is a lot of money at least 50k a seat and CAM 350 is a cheaper alternative.

[Precipice]

A test equipment range? Possibly to bolt up to the simulator / FPGA virtual instrumentation that are unloved?
Possibly scriptable using Altium's pretty decent engines?

Damned if I know, though. Hope it's not a bloody IoT bandwagon chasing fiasco. (Microchip just failed to buy CSR the bluetooth and other IoThinggy chipmakers)

[EEVblog]

A test equipment range? Possibly to bolt up to the simulator / FPGA virtual instrumentation that are unloved?

Greatly doubt it. It's pretty obvious that Altium have all but ditched the failed FPGA dream and all the associated hardware stuff.

[Precipice]

Manufacturing, then? A Tier-2 (or maybe that money gets you a Tier-1, but that doesn't really make sense as a 'sell a little PnP machine & oven to 10% of Altium customers) PnP machine manufactory?
Go back to the old 'design in a day' sales angle, but add a bit of quickturn?

It's going to be an IoT horror, though. And, just like the FPGA stuff, those of us who've been doing the job for a decade+ will ignore it, and new users won't get to grips with it.

[DerekG]

http://www.eevblog.com/2014/09/05/so-who-is-altium-buying/

Probably another high end player in the PCB design arena. Just buy out your competitors like they did in the early 2000's with PCAD.

Or maybe they want to buy the entire company who manufacture professional pcb milling machines for instant prototypes. Or maybe a company that manufactures professional 3D printers.

Time will tell, but it seems likely that the Australian Stock Exchange will place Altium management under heavy scrutiny as the sudden share price jump would tend to indicate that some insider trader is/was taking place.

Has Gordon Gekko been released from jail?

[EEVblog]

Probably another high end player in the PCB design arena. Just buy out your competitors like they did in the early 2000's with PCAD.

The only option there would be Zuken?

Or maybe they want to buy the entire company who manufacture professional pcb milling machines for instant prototypes. Or maybe a company that manufactures professional 3D printers.

Certainly possible.
But my guess is still software based.

Time will tell, but it seems likely that the Australian Stock Exchange will place Altium management under heavy scrutiny as the sudden share price jump would tend to indicate that some insider trader is/was taking place.

Not the first time the ASX have asked Altium to "Please Explain".

[koko79]

To buy Zuken would be some serious money. I suppose if we knew how much they wanted to raise that would help.
Can't see them buying all of Zuken but maybe Zuken would be happy to sell off the Cadstar range?
I doubt Zuken upsell many users from Cadstar to the CR8000 suites so might not be a big loss to them.

[Precipice]

But my guess is still software based.

Buying Sketchup from Trimble? That's always seemed an odd home for it.

(Or, of course, as we all know, Australia has a lot of sun, and a lot of roads. Time for Altium to get freaking investing?)

[zapta]

Inside sources say the will buy Dave Cad.

[Rufus]

We never saw any more of the 'system on a PCB' with off the shelf building block stuff that featured on the splash screen a version or two ago. They must have done quite a lot of work on that.

I didn't think it was a terrible idea and have wondered if it was dead. Can't think what they would want to buy to support it.

With their announced move to the States an acquisition of someone in the States they can move and merge into might be seen as quick and cost effective?

Internet of things? - oh shit. I got some spam from Freescale the other day telling me there will be 50 billion 'things' connected to the internet in 6 years time. I would have more confidence in their prediction if I could think of one thing I want connected to the internet that isn't already.

[Precipice]

I would have more confidence in their prediction if I could think of one thing I want connected to the internet that isn't already.

IoT isn't about things that you/we/anyone sane want connected to the internet, old chap...

[Smokey]

Maybe they are the ones getting taken over...... Taken over by......
ALIENS!

[EEVblog]

Inside sources say the will buy Dave Cad.

Well, it is for sale, at the right price 

[AlfBaz]

Surely IoT has received a bit of a bash from the recent iCloud/selfie fiasco and wouldn't sit well with investors at the moment

[george graves]

Well, if they are going to try to snag the hobbyist / maker market....My guess would be some PCB fabs.  One click order, quick shipping, kind of thing. 

[Psi]

My guess would be some PCB fabs.  One click order, quick shipping, kind of thing.

Yeah, an integrated PCB manufacturing service inside the free/cheap tool would be a killer feature.
Hobbyists wouldn't need to deal with gerber formats, options and manufacturing specifications.
The PCB software could take care of that behind the scenes because it would know all the DRC limitations of the PCB service its providing.

[AlfBaz]

share value price.

[EEVblog]

According to many comments Dave has made you could infer this has been Altiums business model. Will new management be doing anything different? Dave commented they had no debt and buckets of money in the bank. One obviously different course of action they haven't choosen is to return spare cash directly to shareholders.

The new management has done that in the form of dividends to the tune of (from memory) $8M or so.
The old management never paid a dividend to shareholders in the last decade, just spent all the money they gave them on chasing silly impractical dreams.

[miguelvp]

Chasing impractical dreams is how companies and individuals learn what is practical
A very high cost lesson for a company but I bet they at least got something out of it, even if it's just a life lesson.

[EEVblog]

Chasing impractical dreams is how companies and individuals learn what is practical
A very high cost lesson for a company but I bet they at least got something out of it, even if it's just a life lesson.

Yeah, they learnt they finally needed to boot out their founder who drove all that crazy stuff.

[leppie]

Dont know Altium, but something like DesignSpark's ModelSource is an awesome feature.

[DerekG]

Well, if they are going to try to snag the hobbyist / maker market....My guess would be some PCB fabs.  One click order, quick shipping, kind of thing.

Altium would be better off to do a deal with several fab shops to simply make a margin on the quoted price. All they need to do is to encrypt the file & the fab shop uses the decrypter. If Altium offered 5 fab shops, you could hawk your design around to get the cheapest price, fastest delivery etc.

This idea is not new. There are are number of USA companies that already offer this.

Altium have shown that they are pretty dumb at managing things outside of schematic & pcb design. If they were to buy a big fab shop it will (eventually) send them broke.

Hobbyists wouldn't need to deal with gerber formats, options and manufacturing specifications.

Most larger fab shops will take Altium files with no problems (in fact many prefer it as it makes penalisation faster for them). You just have to ask them.

Pretty much all the fab shops in China will take Protel 99 files as they all have bootleg copies in their possession.

[Cside]

Hey everybody... this altium trading hault, altium shares, takeovers etc..... WHO CARES!!!!!

[EEVblog]

Hey everybody... this altium trading hault, altium shares, takeovers etc..... WHO CARES!!!!!

There are 700+ posts on this forum a day, probably the majority are not relevant to your interests. That doesn't not mean other people are not interested and they should not enjoy discussing it.