Post I did on the Altium Forum
And again I will mention that Autodesk's subscription based model (Ie SaaS or rental) was also a response to their previous perpetual license software model when it was almost dealt a significant blow in the initial Vernor vs. Autodesk. These CAD tools blew their wad in the late 1990's giving most users all the tools they needed to replace drafting boards and tape up. And as I've posted before -
shows that SW 1995 is is just as capable for most designs as is the latest versions.
This happened in the DAW industry which started in the late 1980s - well, if you follow my links -
http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/a_definite_non_turd_Roger_Nichols.htmlit started earlier than that with Roger Nichols (six-time Grammy winning engineer that did Steely Dan and others ) and the Wendel in the mid-70's,
By the early 2000's these music recording tools gave you close to everything you needed to replace a large, expensive recording studio and the limitations of editing multitrack tape with razor blades. Just like word processors replaced typewriters.
The key is easy editing as compared to the manual methods from decades ago.
Eventually, suites like Reaper - which was done for the right reasons - became on par with software such as Protools (Profools). Listen to Justin from Reaper talk about it:
https://youtu.be/vfaQrOeb_F0?t=202 and at 3:50:
"... when I left [AOL after they bought Winamp], I came away from it wanting to avoid that in the future; wanting to just make things for the sake of making them .. and not have to constantly justify everything with business decisions/motivations. The ability to just make software for the purpose of making it... for the end goal of making something that's really powerful and enjoyable to use"
So, in that realm - just like it is in CAD and other software tools - the DAW doesn't matter; it's the people's whose hands it's in - that's what makes hit recordings.
Stephen King wrote Carrie on his wife's portable typewriter.
Just like these DAW tools, people like Justin that are in a financial position to do some really great coding for the right reasons will supplant lower - to mid level commercially driven products. Look at things like Open Office and such.
It comes down to "What do you really need to do what you want?"
As to Altium's value - yea, I'd grab the billions from Adesk and run. Altium is in what I would evaluate as a conundrum since it isn't big enough to compete with large, IC design tool companies that also offer products in the same space, and on the other side competing with the ever-escalating Freeware capabilities. Companies are willing to spend ungodly amounts on IC design tools since the fabrication costs of first articles is stoopid expensive. So these companies have the financial mass to do things like re-write and maintain
Autodesk buying Altium is like humans that hook up with some other, at-the-time desirable human, only to discard them in the end when they tire of them and go looking for another. They fail to get the fact that there's more to a fulfilling life than cursory experiences ( I say this being an ugly old fool so take it for what it's worth).
After four decades of doing this it's my opinion that software in the hands of talentless people will be limited to just that.. software. Just like most digital hardware is just a collection of gates and such without software, software without knowledge and care is just as useless if not dangerous.