Altium is killing off perpetual AD

[55pilot]

I was contacted by a new (to me) Altium sales rep this week. He pushed hard to have me "convert" to a SAS (Software As Service = pay or lose access) license. The support on my perpetual license expires in a couple of months.

I told him that SAS is not going to happen, so not to waste his and my time. I asked him, what he had to offer without SAS and he said absolutely nothing. Everything moving forward is SAS.

Then he continued trying to sell me on how great the online services are and how I will miss out on great things. He stopped only when I asked him to call me back after he gets some hearing aids because he is not listening to what I am saying.

P.S. I am in the USA

[exmadscientist]

Ask for a written statement. I think Altium uses some wild west salesman, that try anything to upsell you on the product. I guess commissions are big, so ethic go out the window.

Altium salesmen are some of the most psychotic nutjobs I have ever encountered. Years ago I remember trying to tell one that we don't need more seats, we're happy at the current number, and even if we did need more seats, I don't have any purchasing authority, so please never call me again. We'll call you. Or you can call [manager] or [IT guy], both of whom actually have job descriptions that include dealing with your ass.

Of course he kept on calling me for weeks, at least once a week, even after I'd told him that I couldn't give him any money.

He somehow stopped just before I went to talk to the IT guy about getting his number blocked at the PBX. I don't know how he managed to cut it that close!

And, yeah... get it in writing from these nutters.

[55pilot]

And, yeah... get it in writing from these nutters.

That will not help you one bit. The company will tell you that the salesperson was not authorized to promise you what they promised in writing.

Been there, done that and not just with Altium.

[JohnG]

And, yeah... get it in writing from these nutters.

That will not help you one bit. The company will tell you that the salesperson was not authorized to promise you what they promised in writing.

Been there, done that and not just with Altium.

It is still important to do so in any correspondence, but especially with companies that you do not trust. If they are behaving unethically, you might be glad to have a document trail. Sure, 90+% of the time it has little value, but it can have a lot of value if you need it.

John

[Doctorandus_P]

If they are behaving unethically, you might be glad to have a document trail. Sure, 90+% of the time it has little value, but it can have a lot of value if you need it.

I'd say vote with your money. Give it to a company that cares for it's customers instead of it's shareholders.

Edit: Found some .pdf.pdf presentation for their investors on their website:

https://cdn-static.altium.com/sites/default/files/2024-02/ALU%20First%20Half%20Investor%20Presentation%20FINAL.pdf.pdf

[JohnG]

I'd say vote with your money. Give it to a company that cares for it's customers instead of it's shareholders.

Some people here may actually be in a position to vote with their money. The rest of us can only try to influence those with the money to vote. Definitely worth the effort, IMO.

Edit: Found some .pdf.pdf presentation for their investors on their website:

https://cdn-static.altium.com/sites/default/files/2024-02/ALU%20First%20Half%20Investor%20Presentation%20FINAL.pdf.pdf

Slide 26 says it all. But I can't believe they forgot to say something about "Industry 5.0"!

John

[tooki]

I also wonder what doofus wrote slide 25:



Google and Apple both own and sell apps. They might have been able to piece this together by, I dunno,... opening their phone?

And Netflix is planning to open physical locations: https://www.forbes.com/sites/claraludmir/2023/10/16/netflix-to-open-brick-and-mortar-location-in-2025-adding-retail-to-its-roster/

And I'd be quite surprised if Skype didn't own some infrastructure of its own, even if it just means servers and whatnot. (And since Skype is a Microsoft product, even if it runs on Azure, then it's still on company-owned infrastructure...)

[tooki]

Oh, and slide 28: "Altium has the Opportunity to Disrupt the Electronics Industry in the Same Way that Amazon Disrupted the E-Commerce Industry"

Umm... did it escape their attention that Amazon does not exactly have a good reputation anymore?

[tooki]

Oh this is rich, especially the highlighted tile.

[Doctorandus_P]

And there is more, page 32 confirms once more they're set on killing the perpetual licenses:



Also, I don't know how long they are going to keep that pdf available, so grab a copy while you can.

[floobydust]

I also wonder what doofus wrote slide 25:

(Attachment Link)

Google and Apple both own and sell apps. They might have been able to piece this together by, I dunno,... opening their phone?

And Netflix is planning to open physical locations: https://www.forbes.com/sites/claraludmir/2023/10/16/netflix-to-open-brick-and-mortar-location-in-2025-adding-retail-to-its-roster/

And I'd be quite surprised if Skype didn't own some infrastructure of its own, even if it just means servers and whatnot. (And since Skype is a Microsoft product, even if it runs on Azure, then it's still on company-owned infrastructure...)

You clipped off the top of that slide - All Hail the Cloud. Stock - to the moon!

[Smokey]

Oh, and slide 28: "Altium has the Opportunity to Disrupt the Electronics Industry in the Same Way that Amazon Disrupted the E-Commerce Industry"

Umm... did it escape their attention that Amazon does not exactly have a good reputation anymore?

... among a certain class who's news media spends a significant amount of time dedicated to bashing Amazon (along with any other large and therefore inherently "Evil" company). 

[tooki]

Oh, and slide 28: "Altium has the Opportunity to Disrupt the Electronics Industry in the Same Way that Amazon Disrupted the E-Commerce Industry"

Umm... did it escape their attention that Amazon does not exactly have a good reputation anymore?

... among a certain class who's news media spends a significant amount of time dedicated to bashing Amazon (along with any other large and therefore inherently "Evil" company).

Uhhh… no? Like… Amazon’s shitty behavior is well documented by a wide variety of news outlets. Not everything is a partisan issue.

[rfindley]

Somebody posted a link which explains how to switch Altium to use an offsite license. So this should be a way out in case you want to continue using your current Altium version with a perpetual license.

Any idea where that link is, or how to do it?  I know they'll happily sell you the Private License Server (PLS) for around $3k USD so you can continue using your perpetual license without relying on Altium's online server.  But I haven't found a way to generate a Standalone license from an On-Demand license.  They took away (or at least hid) the option to convert On-Demand to Standalone a few years ago.

[jc101]

I asked Altium to change my on-demand to a standalone licence, they replied no problem just give us £4,000. Even if you grab the on-demand .elf file Altium will refuse to load it of you try to use it off line.

I used to standalone but was moved to on-demand a few years back. With the current situation little point in raising the issue with them.

At a trade show last week and asked about the licence situation. Sighs all round and the “it’s what people want”. Despite being able to buy a permanent license with a years subscription on the UK website. No mention, anywhere, that cannot be renewed. Seems to be a very strange situation.

[mstrano]

One option that users have is to export the Altium 365 component data into an Altium DbLib format and then just continue using a perpetual license off subscription.
I have done this for a few of my customers and a previous employer and it worked out very well.

[PlainName]

export the Altium 365 component data into an Altium DbLib format

If, soon, they make that kind of export hard to impossible, we'll know they're monitoring this forum

[ianm42]

Well at £350/£450 per user per month x 3 seats, as a very light Altium user (7 hours per fortnight according to Altium dashboard) we are abandoning Altium.

I moved from DOS based Orcad in 1991 to Protel Schematic V1, to Protel 2 & 3, then Protel 98, Protel 99, DXP and finally Altium Designer, that's 33 years using Protel/Altium.

We did get a price for perpetual license -20% discount, which makes the subscription free, but no one at my work was happy buying £10k worth of license that would effectively be "unsupported" (ie once subscription expires you drop back to old Altium version) and be completely non upgradable in the future.

Did get into conversation with Altium about buying 2nd hand licenses, as two companies I deal with are discontinuing their Altium usage and no longer need their licenses. Unfortunately you are not allowed to transfer licenses (I sure that is not legal in EU) so that was the end of that.

[voltsandjolts]

Unfortunately you are not allowed to transfer licenses (I sure that is not legal in EU) so that was the end of that.

Yeh, Altium can write whatever they like in the EULA but I'm sure they know the no-transfer clause would get knocked down in court. Perhaps their push away from perpetual licences will create some market for used perpetual Altium licenses, but transfer is still ackward without Altium's assistance AFAICT.

[rgarito]

So we finally just got the same email (our renewal date is Dec 31)...

Other than ActiveBOM, I really wouldn't lose much, if anything, by no longer renewing support (I think).  Probably the last major thing (other than ActiveBOM) I got which I use extensively from updates was when they added controlled impedance (and that was several years ago). 

I use git for all of my version control and cloud storage (both for designs AND all my my firmware work) and have never even given much thought to A365 (I am NOT a fan of "the cloud").  The circuit design and firmware I design is all for my "side job" with a small electronics design house.  My "real job" is as a software engineer designing networking gear used a lot in the cloud.  From my experiences with that and what I see every day in my real job, no, I am NOT NOT NOT a fan of "the cloud."      

Even with git, I keep local copies of every one of my repositories (just in case!).  I just do the online repo's as a backup and for collaboration with a few other engineers scattered geographically around the USA.

So anyways...  We were given two options:  1) renew our On-Demand Perpetual license for one more year.  2) CONVERT to a Term license (again, one year).

It gets confusing:  For the Term license they stated amongst other things "Perpetual License Archive: Your Perpetual license will be archived at its current version and made available for use should you choose not to renew your Term-Based License in the future"

They did NOT mention this for Option 1 (the perpetual license).

Now, it gets worse:  every year we have the familiar license dance with Altium's sales dept.  We always wind up negotiating better pricing after "playing chicken" with them a bit and waiting until right at the end to agree to renew.   But, what concerns me:  a few times (including last year) the perpetual license actually crossed it's expiration date by a few days.  During that time, I could only open and view my designs.  I COULD NOT EDIT THEM with an "expired" perpetual license.

SO...  What happens if we decide to non-renew perpetual this year or if we do the "last time renew" with option 1--what happens on Jan 1, 2026?  Are we again stuck with not being able to edit designs?

The license I have in Altium is currently "On Demand - Single Site - Perpetual."   It is a Standard (not Pro) license.  As others have mentioned, I have no option to export the license to an ALF file.  Which also raises the question of what happens if Altium turns off the perpetual license servers in the future?  That seems to be a recurring theme for all of the people relying on "cloud based" things like home automation (which I also do a lot with).  For Home automation, I have made it a point to only use products with a local API for that same reason, while I watch others get burned with expensive implementations that become useless eWaste when a company decides to shut down...

Thoughts?

[Someone]

a few times (including last year) the perpetual license actually crossed it's expiration date by a few days.  During that time, I could only open and view my designs. I COULD NOT EDIT THEM with an "expired" perpetual license.

Have not seen that behaviour here with perpetual licences, are you sure it was selected correctly in your license manager? We get the warning popup on every launch of the software that the license is expired (on demand - perpetual) but it works fine (recent versions of Altium).

As others have mentioned, I have no option to export the license to an ALF file.  Which also raises the question of what happens if Altium turns off the perpetual license servers in the future?

Then licensees would have to lawyer up to enforce their rights, or crack it and hope the lawyers don't come sniffing.

[rfindley]

@rgarito, you could be my digital twin, right down to the home automation stuff and "real job" as a software engineer... though my minor use of Altium is actually still part of my real job.

Anyway, I have the same license as you (on-demand, single site, perpetual), and my license renewal is December 2, 2024.  I do not intend to renew or convert, so if anything bad happens on December 3, you will definitely see a follow-up here from me before Dec 31.

You *should* have been able to edit your designs when your maintenance subscription expired by a few days, unless perhaps they are saved in your online "workspace", which is only available on active subscription.  I intentionally stay logged out of my workspace so nothing gets saved there.  But still, I will confirm that I can edit my locally-stored designs after December 2.

To avoid problems with Altium turning off the servers in the future, you need to check out your license as "roaming" in your Altium dashboard, which bypasses the check-in when you open the software.  I learned about that a month or two ago when I was using Altium offline while traveling.  The software popped up a login message every few minutes, so I asked my Altium rep about it, and they told me about Roaming.  Supposedly (as someone told me in this forum), the default roaming period of 0 hours is "indefinitely", but I haven't tried that yet.  I currently have mine roaming for 99,999 hours (the max value), which is about 11 years.

[kinero]

I, too, have a perpetual on-demand license. I found out that account representatives are good folks and will try to help you. I can't speak to the name of my account representative, but here's what I was able to achieve:

1. Negotiate excellent annual renewal rate. I do this every year before Altium's quarterly fiscal reporting.
2. At the time of renewal, ask for 3-6 months more on top of the 12 months. 

And my favorite...

3. If you hold a perpetual license from pre-2022, ask ask for a free upgrade from Standard to Pro.  That's because your license included multi-board capability, and after Pro was introduced, everyone god "downgraded" to Standard, loosing the multi-board support.  I felt that I was improperly deprived of that feature, and my Altium rep was able to bump up to Pro free of charge.

And when all else fails....

4. Wait until your maintenance period is 1-2 days from expiring, and use the dashboard feature to upgrade to Pro or Enterprise. The price of the upgrade will be prorated based on the remaining maintenance period. If you have 1 day remaining, your upgrade cost to Pro or Enterprise will be just a few dollars....and you will keep it for life.

[asmi]

That's because your license included multi-board capability, and after Pro was introduced, everyone god "downgraded" to Standard, loosing the multi-board support.  I felt that I was improperly deprived of that feature, and my Altium rep was able to bump up to Pro free of charge.

I still have multi-board support with my standard license (originally purchased in 2020)

[Someone]

That's because your license included multi-board capability, and after Pro was introduced, everyone god "downgraded" to Standard, loosing the multi-board support.  I felt that I was improperly deprived of that feature, and my Altium rep was able to bump up to Pro free of charge.

I still have multi-board support with my standard license (originally purchased in 2020)

On which version of Altium ?