So is it worth it to learn CS instead of AD? are there companies that actually bought it and will stick to it? because if someone wants to learn PCB design like myself in the near future, he must know the tools used in the industry he aim for.
I think if you learn CS, you will have no problems with AD. That's definitely not the issue. Will it be around for awhile? I don't know. I am still in evaluation of CS and this is one of my concerns. I tried asking Newark what the deal was and if they had any sales figures but no go. It seems they are still playing with pricing which makes me feel they are trying to find the sweet spot and don't know otherwise. CS is in a weird spot. It's still too expensive for any hobbyist and any professional has to make the decision of whether or not to risk 1) CS being around 'x' years from now, and 2) whether cross-talk between CS and AD will be maintained. All it takes is one update to no longer allow import of CS PCB files and then you're not able to consult for anyone who wants the more common 'AD' projects on hand. If I were paying a consultant, I'd probably request the same considering how new CS is.
Now for some speculation, which is absolutely just that.
If you were to put CS under ~1.5k USD, I think now you start to dip into the hobbyist sector and surely into 'pro-byists' - folks who do hobby work but at a high level... or who already have jobs and just want nice tools. At 3k or wherever it is now, you are really ruling out any hobbyists and they will spend the extra time learning/using an inferior tool simply because the cost isn't justified. You will say things like "Is CS 'N' times better than diptrace?" "Will it ever save me thousands of dollars?" "If so, how long would it take to get that savings back?" "Also, how do I justify maintenance?" New CAD tools every 5 years is a good rule of thumb. "Can I support that as well or will I just have to use outdated tools to recoup the initial expense?" For a hobbyist, you can get a nice 2nd hand T&M rig for that kind of $ and hardware is always easier to justify. If you're making $ with CS, then the price isn't so bad. But professionals need to know the tool will be supported and will be compatible with other tools as requested by their clients. It's also missing some really basic features that make me think they aren't targeting the tool for professional use. So right now, it's in a weird purgatory of sorts. Out of reach of the hobbyist 'sinners' and not safe enough for the pro 'saints.'
The other interesting thing I've noticed on the AD side of things is that it has a ton of stuff many folks will never use. There is limited upgradability for it. You don't buy add-ons like you do with other softwares (Cadence, etc...) This means it's just more expensive because it's all in there. Before the lower cost option of something like CS, you
had to be a professional to justify paying for AD. Because of AD's very high cost (and it's gone way up from when I remember it being about half what it is now), I'm sure they are worried about CS stealing away some AD customers. If they make CS cheaper, the switch gets more and more appealing. So I'm sure part of the decision on pricing (and feature limiting) CS was careful enough not to loose a ton of customers paying 3x what CS costs. That's a big hit.
What they should have done, in my ignorant and completely over-reaching opinion, is simply made AD what it is. An excellent PCB layout tool. The FPGA/embedded stuff has been there for quite some time. Never once thought to use it instead of the Xilinx or Altera tools I've used that work very well. But you pay for that. Or high speed tools. Some people don't need that. But you pay for it. And so on... AD should just be released in a 'standard' form which would be very similar to CS in feature set. And then you just bill up from there. Each add on you pay for and each has subscription/support fees. If you need it, you have to buy it and will. But why buy everything?!? I'm sure they've looked at this model. Many other competitors do just this.
I also wondered why companies didn't price software products based on revenue. I'm in this weird spot where all of the powerful tools, which would help a startup immensely, are the same price whether I make negative dollars or millions of dollars. The sad part is that we find our alternates and will stick with them far past the point in the future of being able to afford 'better' tools simply due to legacy. You could just send a tax document
I guess you'd get too much exploitation or something.
Enough jibber-jabber for me!