Altium ditched its NZ distributor..

[mrpackethead]

Well, there you go, Altium Ditched its NZ distributor..  Or did the distributor ditch Altium.

[Psi]

yeah, it was weird

We bought a licence from them a month or two back and all was good. Then called them up a few weeks layer to ask about getting the solidworks integration addon and they said they couldnt talk to us.
Wouldnt give any explanation, just said "we aren't allowed to talk to you".

[D3f1ant]

They had been selling 'Protel' since the very beginning so I'm guessing it was Altium that ditched them. Its probably a good thing. Whenever there was a problem it would usually take days to sort out as emails go back and forth between them and altium. Now you get a nice direct line to somebody that can actually help or at least lodge the bug. I pretty much always hate having to buy from 'value added resellers'.

[mrpackethead]

I've had the most hidious experience with "support" from Altium..  I found this out yesterday because some Altium sales guy rang up wanting to sell me training... Call went somethign like this..

" we are running a training course, is any one interested "...

" Are you going to teach people how to work with the buggy bit of software "

....

" we are now dealing directly with end customers ... "

I feel sorry for the poor sales guy who got beaten up..    There was awesome presales,  but from the time we got our second licecnes, things just went down hill.

[D3f1ant]

Haha, I got the same call. They said they where just checking I got the email, as if they where surprised I didn't sign up. I told them I probably have more experience than their trainer so why would I want training?

Software like Altium and Solidworks (probably worse than  AD in this regard) both seem to just be in a perpetual loop of bug fixes. They continually add new festures, and in the process break existing ones. Once you get to a stable version (or SW service pack) it does pay to resist clicking that upgrade button. Unless there is a compelling new feature or your a masochist and just need the lattest one. I do 'feel' like AD16 has been fairly good so far, its been a few months since I last seen the dreaded exception error.

[tautech]

I do 'feel' like AD16 has been fairly good so far, its been a few months since I last seen the dreaded exception error.

I still use AD16 the same way I use AD6.9. No need to pay subscription at all.

Care to enlighten us? 

[D3f1ant]

Yep, just like with most high end software, we only using a small subset of the features available. The 3D and more robust design rules are the killer features for me. I have no use for any of that vault bloat, although your somewhat forced into if you use the solidworks collaboration plugin. I still using stand alone libraries that where originally created in 99SE. I suspect thr number of corporates using vault (vault is expensive too) and the comprehensive part management stuff are few.

From what I understand there are still way more companies still using 99SE than Altium would like.

[mrpackethead]

I do 'feel' like AD16 has been fairly good so far, its been a few months since I last seen the dreaded exception error.

I still use AD16 the same way I use AD6.9. No need to pay subscription at all.

Care to enlighten us? 

We expect our customers to pay for our software, it would be pretty poor of us to use pirated software that someone else provided.

Nobody in China pays for Altium, and the cracks are well avaialble on the ineternet.

[D3f1ant]

Software (and hardware) piracy is a problem for everyone. I feel if your using the software to make money, you really should buy it. If your just a hobbiests then I don't think anybody cares. They should almost encourage it (perhaps they do to a certain extent making it easy to pirate) to get more people self trained, it might lead to future sales I guess. I not sure it's easiest software to learn, suspect most hobbiests would be better off with Eagle (as good as free)

Alitiums licence agreement (have you read it?) allows you to legally install a second copy and use it at home, that's quite unusual I think.

[Bud]

I recall that is on a condition you do not use two copies at the same time. And i believe they allow to make a 3rd copy for backup purpose, so it also must not be used at the same time with either of the first two.

[tautech]

I do 'feel' like AD16 has been fairly good so far, its been a few months since I last seen the dreaded exception error.

I still use AD16 the same way I use AD6.9. No need to pay subscription at all.

Care to enlighten us? 

We expect our customers to pay for our software, it would be pretty poor of us to use pirated software that someone else provided.

When I read this I immediately think you're affiliated with Altium. I'm 

[ajb]

Software (and hardware) piracy is a problem for everyone. I feel if your using the software to make money, you really should buy it. If your just a hobbiests then I don't think anybody cares. They should almost encourage it (perhaps they do to a certain extent making it easy to pirate) to get more people self trained, it might lead to future sales I guess. I not sure it's easiest software to learn, suspect most hobbiests would be better off with Eagle (as good as free)

Alitiums licence agreement (have you read it?) allows you to legally install a second copy and use it at home, that's quite unusual I think.

Autodesk has a similar two computers policy, at least on AutoCAD LT.  They also take an interesting approach with Fusion 360, which is explicitly free for hobbyists and startups (<$100k revenue), and a measly $40/month otherwise.  I seem to recall that Eagle's stated policy was you can install it on as many computers as you want, as long as there's not more than one concurrent user per license.

[Bud]

Nobody in China pays for Altium, and the cracks are well avaialble on the ineternet.

If Altium wants to reduce piracy of their product they should ditch their developers in Ukraine. Fresh copies of pirated Altium are always available form Ukraine. I wonder why.

[mrpackethead]

When I read this I immediately think you're affiliated with Altium. I'm 

My code is bad, but not that bad.