What does everyone think about the recent price increase? (27%+ $7.2k->$9.2k)

[OnTheMF]

I'm shopping around for some EDA software and was a little surprised to learn Altium is now $9.2K! I'm curious to know what current Altium users think? Was this a long overdue increase or are they trying to get blood from a stone here?

[EEVblog]

This is typical Altium.
I remember working at Altium when the price was something like $12K, and they slashed it by like 75% to $3K or something like that.
And then the founder proudly stood there in front of everyone and said "We can never go back to high priced software, we have burnt our bridges."
Of course, 12 months later it had doubled or something 

[DerekG]

I'm shopping around for some EDA software and was a little surprised to learn Altium is now $9.2K!

Yes, Altium increased $2K on the 1st July 2014.

If you are in the business of contracting your services out to various companies, then Altium might be your best choice as it has become a defacto standard for many companies designs.

If not, then look carefully at what your actual needs are. You may well be able to save some considerable dollars by using Proteus or DipTrace which are both excellent schematic to pcb design packages.

I've used all three. Proteus is very intuitive (has an easy to learn interface) & their pin limited versions are great value. DipTrace is less expensive than Proteus & does not offer so many smarts. But is also very good value & is very usable.

Altium is the most complicated to use but offers the most powerful features. Look carefully at your design needs before forking out $9K plus for it.

As I've said before, most of us who use Altium don't particularly like it, nor do we like Altium the company. But is has sort of become the defacto standard for many companies who demand designs be supplied in the Altium format.

[AndyC_772]

If you're looking at Altium, then you should also look at Cadence, PADS or Expedition before you consider dropping right down to the hobby tools.

Personally I use Orcad PCB Designer, which is a cut down version of Allegro (Cadence), and can be had for about £2k.

[Kjelt]

What I personally think if any company rises the prices of their products with more then 5% (and this is a whopping 27%):

 - they are going bankrupt and need money fast (or recently lost a lot of money on a failed product)
 - they have a lunatic in their marketing department / management
 - they have a monopoly and like to shake their customers down like the maffia

any or all of the above.

[EEVblog]

- they are going bankrupt and need money fast (or recently lost a lot of money on a failed product)
 - they have a lunatic in their marketing department / management
 - they have a monopoly and like to shake their customers down like the maffia

Or the much touted "low cost" version is coming out and they are repositioning the price brackets?

[koko79]

Ouch! Has anyone heard a justification from them? If you are going to do that you need a story to go with it....

[EEVblog]

Ouch! Has anyone heard a justification from them? If you are going to do that you need a story to go with it....

New financials came out today:
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20140708/pdf/42qps9r034d7zr.pdf
They are going gangbusters, and hoarding case. (as always has been the case, Altium have zero debt)
So there is no reason to do it from a financial perspective, apart from milking the cash cow even harder.

[DerekG]

What I personally think if any company rises the prices of their products with more then 5% (and this is a whopping 27%):

 - they are going bankrupt and need money fast (or recently lost a lot of money on a failed product)
 - they have a lunatic in their marketing department / management
 - they have a monopoly and like to shake their customers down like the maffia

any or all of the above.

Altium have increased their prices as revenues are stagnant, just like Microsoft (the last 3 years sales revenues has gone backwards) & Apple (the last 2 years sales revenues have gone backwards).

When the technology (software in this case) matures, customers see little reason to upgrade. An example of this is Microsoft Word 2007 & Word 2013. Whilst the later version does a few more things, most customers can do everything they want with the earlier version. The same thing goes for Windows 7 & Windows 8.

Altium is not much different. I own Altium 6.9 (2006/2007 version) & recently completed a contract design using Altium 14. The main thing I noticed is that a couple of screen bugs that p*ssed me off in version 6.9 have been fixed & the screen drivers have been improved somewhat. There are a few new features (which I didn't use or used a bit just because they are there).

Would I pay $3600 (the price quoted about 2 years ago) to upgrade my copy?  Nope, because I don't think it is good value (the money comes out of my personal pocket).

The other reason Altium is having a hard time is because of the effects of the GFC & the dumb move to China several years back. There was no way USA military contractors were going to use the later versions of software that were developed in China for fear of backdoor leakage over the net & live net access to their computers via the Altium Component Vault.

Now that Nick Martin has been booted from the company we wait in baited breath for Altium to once again concentrate on their bread & butter Schematic & PCB design software (& stop wasting resources on FPGA design software & nano boards).

So far as I can tell, there has been a little more emphasis on the schematic & pcb side of things, but it has now come at a cost of some $2K more.

As I said before, not many Altium users actually like Altium the Company.

[DerekG]

New financials came out today:
They are going gangbusters

It was common knowledge some 4 to 5 months ago that the price was going up by $2K on July 1st 2014. Altium carefully leaked this out to many of their customers.

Many took the opportunity to upgrade before the price rise ............ but it will not be such a gravy train in another 6 months time.

They have substantially cut their operating costs & this has improved their bottom line.

[EEVblog]

The other reason Altium is having a hard time is because of the effects of the GFC & the dumb move to China several years back. There was no way USA military contractors were going to use the later versions of software that were developed in China for fear of backdoor leakage over the net & live net access to their computers via the Altium Component Vault.

That is why they have announced they moving the HQ out of China to the US (for the 2nd time now)
I predicted they last in China two years tops, and that was pretty close to spot-on.

Now that Nick Martin has been booted from the company we wait in baited breath for Altium to once again concentrate on their bread & butter Schematic & PCB design software (& stop wasting resources on FPGA design software & nano boards).
So far as I can tell, there has been a little more emphasis on the schematic & pcb side of things, but it has now come at a cost of some $2K more.

That's basically happened, and they have admitted they are focusing on core PCB/schematic once again. Their real problem might be lack of programming talent.
They were already short staffed on the core PCB side of things, and it's public knowledge that most of those key people have left since the China move.
No idea how many programmers they have working on core stuff now, but it's not the key people they had for the last decade.
They will never drop FPGA from the product because that would cause them to lose face, so they will only put a token effort into it.

[EEVblog]

They have substantially cut their operating costs & this has improved their bottom line.

That tends to happen when all your old staff on high salaries have left.
Plus no more blowing money on hardware, so yeah all this improves the bottom line, for now.

[bwat]

I own Altium 6.9 (2006/2007 version) & recently completed a contract design using Altium 14.
...
Would I pay $3600 (the price quoted about 2 years ago) to upgrade my copy?  Nope, because I don't think it is good value (the money comes out of my personal pocket).

If you're contracting then aren't you spreading the costs amongst your clients and claiming back VAT/MOMS/Sales taxes/whatever-its-called-in-your-neck-of-the-woods and classifying the licence as a cost in your bookkeeping? Or was it a one off-gig?

As for price increases, the golden rule is, if in doubt raise your prices. Consumers tend to confuse price with value.

[EEVblog]

If you're contracting then aren't you spreading the costs amongst your clients and claiming back VAT/MOMS/Sales taxes/whatever-its-called-in-your-neck-of-the-woods and classifying the licence as a cost in your bookkeeping?

Sure you can claim your software on tax, but it's not magic, it's still the majority of that money out of your pocket.
Many people think that things are free when you claim them on tax  , you see the big rush at local computer market at the end of the financial year 

[bwat]

I was thinking more along the lines of: assuming DerekG is a business then he wouldn't/shouldn't be taking anything out of his pocket for items like this. When offset against the money coming in, the costs aren't free but the items are a hell of a lot cheaper than if they came out of your own pocket after sales taxes, business taxes, and income taxes which would apply if he paid himself then bought the licence. I don't have the technical terms for these things in English. My business vocabulary is in another tounge. Also, SWMBO is a tax specialist so I've had my behaviour modified which is why this post jumped out at me.

[Kjelt]

Altium have increased their prices as revenues are stagnant, just like Microsoft (the last 3 years sales revenues has gone backwards) & Apple (the last 2 years sales revenues have gone backwards).
When the technology (software in this case) matures, customers see little reason to upgrade. An example of this is Microsoft Word 2007 & Word 2013. Whilst the later version does a few more things, most customers can do everything they want with the earlier version. The same thing goes for Windows 7 & Windows 8.

That is probably the reason that software firms (like Microsoft and Adobe) are now licensing their software on a time (month/year) basis (for instance Office365) they make the initial price cheaper but you can only use it for a limited time period, and if you continu to use it the total money spent is well over a single product would have cost you.
This is my worst nightmare that all software vendors are going to do this time based licensing.

[bwat]

Altium have increased their prices as revenues are stagnant, just like Microsoft (the last 3 years sales revenues has gone backwards) & Apple (the last 2 years sales revenues have gone backwards).
When the technology (software in this case) matures, customers see little reason to upgrade. An example of this is Microsoft Word 2007 & Word 2013. Whilst the later version does a few more things, most customers can do everything they want with the earlier version. The same thing goes for Windows 7 & Windows 8.

That is probably the reason that software firms (like Microsoft and Adobe) are now licensing their software on a time (month/year) basis (for instance Office365) they make the initial price cheaper but you can only use it for a limited time period, and if you continu to use it the total money spent is well over a single product would have cost you.
This is my worst nightmare that all software vendors are going to do this time based licensing.

As a young programmer in the early 90s I was told that "the software business model is a renting model." This was probably gleaned for the decades of experience with mainframes and the like. Once it was hidden in upgrades, now it's more explicit I suppose.

[Kjelt]

For an EE hobbieist that wants to keep his sources in an archive and wants to be able also in a ten years from now to rebuild the code and/or change and re-order the pcb this would be disastrous if all software companies would go this way. I can foresee a lot of cracks/hacks resulting in even lower income for these companies.

[sacherjj]

For an EE hobbieist that wants to keep his sources in an archive and wants to be able also in a ten years from now to rebuild the code and/or change and re-order the pcb this would be disastrous if all software companies would go this way. I can foresee a lot of cracks/hacks resulting in even lower income for these companies.

It is scary when you read through many of the agreements for things like Adobe Cloud.  You agree to let them use your files that you store there.  Uh.  No.  I don't think so.   

Maybe with the extra money, Altium can finally learn how to measure length properly...

[DerekG]

I own Altium 6.9 (2006/2007 version) & recently completed a contract design using Altium 14.

If you're contracting then aren't you spreading the costs amongst your clients and claiming back VAT/MOMS/Sales taxes/whatever-its-called-in-your-neck-of-the-woods and classifying the licence as a cost in your bookkeeping? Or was it a one off-gig?

I contract from time to time for a company that always has the latest version of Altium. They supply the mini-cube computer with Altium already loaded on it. The mini-cube has 2 x raid SSD hard drives so it can be packed in your check-in (or carry on) luggage.

I'm quite happy to complete the contract in Altium ver 6.9, then import the file into ver 14 & resave it ............... but that's not the way they work.

They used to do all their design in-house, but since the GFC they don't have enough new design work to make that economical.

[tszaboo]

This happens when prices are set by people completely detached from the real value of money. "I mean sure, 9.2K oz dollars doesnt seem to be too much, right? My second swimming pool in the backyard was 5 times this much"
This is about the yearly salary of an EE in east Europe, after taxes. It is also the price of a solidworks + autocad.

[Rufus]

This happens when prices are set by people completely detached from the real value of money. "I mean sure, 9.2K oz dollars doesnt seem to be too much, right? My second swimming pool in the backyard was 5 times this much"
This is about the yearly salary of an EE in east Europe, after taxes. It is also the price of a solidworks + autocad.

If you are employing someone to use Altium 5 days a week, even in east Europe they cost a lot more than their take home pay, probably 3 times more and the $9k2 is for a perpetual license not 12 months. That kind of cost isn't a barrier, in more wealthy parts of the world it becomes trivial.

Altium need to set the price to be competitive, high and they loose sales to the competition and loose upgrade purchases, low and they get more sales but less money per sale. There is probably a wide range of price over which their bottom line won't change much. When it was particularly low in the past I'm pretty sure they were trying to increase their number of users to make money from maintenance subscriptions, only Altium really knows how that worked out.

[tszaboo]

But the employers cannot really afford it after a while. Instead of making a new job for someone, they start making double shifts, increase the workload of existing employees or start using cheaper software. I don't know which one is worse.

In the meantime, the core package, what 90% of the users use didnt change much. Well at least, up to 13, because when I asked for 14, my employer showed me the "middle finger", stating that it is just too expensive.

[QuantumPhys]

Anyone have any idea what is Altium's market share in the higher price market?  I have seen data indicating that Cadence/OrCad/Allegro, Zuken, and Mentor are much better off, but for some reason Altium seems to be the most widely accepted in PCB fabs?

[AndyC_772]

for some reason Altium seems to be the most widely accepted in PCB fabs?

Eh?