Can Altium import projects and libraries from Mentor Graphics PADS 9.5

[AndersJ]

I am considering moving from PADS to another pcb CAD program.

Q1. Does Altium offer eternal licensing, as in buy once and use forever?
Q2. Can Altium import PADS 9.5 projects, footprints, schematic symbols, decals, parts, libraries etc?

[dmills]

Yea, AD licenses can work that way, note that support is an ongoing cost, if you want to get the updates, and you generally want to stay about a year behind, they are a bit notorious for the "Does it compile? Does it Link? Well then ship it already" school of software testing.

I have successfully imported .asc layout from Pads9.5, never tried for a schematic.

What does not seem to do anything very sane is import from DxD (Spit!), but DxD is not even that reliable at loading its OWN work, I hated that tool.