Circuit Studio reboot

[EEVblog]

Another forum has this (oct 2015)
"2. CS does not support the importation of AD14 file formats. Currently, we support anything AD10 and older to include PCAD (Along with just about all mainstream competitive formats). However, you will want to make sure that you load all of the importers from the Extensions and Updates panel in CS..."

Altium did the stupidest thing possible with their tools.
They now have now created 3 separate tools they have to maintain instead of 1.
CM brings them in no money at all, ever. CS bought them in no money because they priced it stupidly, but now might get decent traction and some money. But the high end tool will always bring in 90% of Altium's revenue.
They should have just crippled AD and gone back to how it was 15 years when you could buy various option licences.
Although trying to make it easier to use for beginners wasn't a bad thing. Not sure it needed a whole new program to do that though.

[EEVblog]

If Altium sticks with $1k for CS, they will kill the competition. What is there is meat and potatoes PCB design. This gets CS out of the pricing  valley of death.

I wonder how many they sold at that ridiculous price?
They also need to drop Farnell selling the thing, that's just stupid.
They tell you to click here to buy it:


Then you get this crap with no pricing and makes you think you have to "Request A Quote"!


It's just STUPID! 

But if you add it to your cart you see the pricing, which is still $4119


Just put a frigg'n PayPal button your website Altium, geeze.

[mikeselectricstuff]

They also need to drop Farnell selling the thing, that's just stupid.

Absolutely - it's is just stupid to give money to a distributor for something that doesn't need to have a physical deliverable.
Unless they had a very low-cost version that they couyld throw at Farnell just to get some exposure, which is the only value Farnell could add to something like this.

Another exanple of this stupidity is this (USB stack IP) which is also likely to need significant support that would be way out of Farnell's depth :
 http://uk.farnell.com/micrium/usb-usbd-pkg000-p-p1/usb-device-ctrl-stack-single-licence/dp/2492008

[EEVblog]

Unless they had a very low-cost version that they couyld throw at Farnell just to get some exposure, which is the only value Farnell could add to something like this.

Farnell have bugger-all exposure. No one uses their stupid website community. Best they have is their newsletter.
They'd get orders of magnitude more exposure on blogs like ours.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Unless they had a very low-cost version that they couyld throw at Farnell just to get some exposure, which is the only value Farnell could add to something like this.

Farnell have bugger-all exposure. No one uses their stupid website community. Best they have is their newsletter.
They'd get orders of magnitude more exposure on blogs like ours.

I'm not talking about the community - I mean banners on their website, and even their paper catalogue - they already have a large base of people using their website every day, and it's about as well-targetted as you can get for electronics professionals, so having your product there has to be of value in terms of product awareness.   

[bombledmonk]

They also need to drop Farnell selling the thing, that's just stupid.

Absolutely - it's is just stupid to give money to a distributor for something that doesn't need to have a physical deliverable.
Unless they had a very low-cost version that they couyld throw at Farnell just to get some exposure, which is the only value Farnell could add to something like this.

The primary reason for this is that many companies already have easy paths to do business with distribution.  It's probably less relevant for this price level, but dropping $1K at Digi-Key or Farnell is often a much easier proposition than getting approvals to buy off some random 3rd party site (Altium). 

[EEVblog]

I'm not talking about the community - I mean banners on their website, and even their paper catalogue - they already have a large base of people using their website every day, and it's about as well-targetted as you can get for electronics professionals, so having your product there has to be of value in terms of product awareness.

Do they actually advertise it on there though?
They have thousands of other items to advertise too, so (apart from the odd occasion) I'm doubting it unless Altium paid them.

[EEVblog]

The primary reason for this is that many companies already have easy paths to do business with distribution.  It's probably less relevant for this price level, but dropping $1K at Digi-Key or Farnell is often a much easier proposition than getting approvals to buy off some random 3rd party site (Altium).

True. But to make it the only place you can buy it, big mistake. Element 14's product page is repulsive.
Sub $1k will be under a lot of companies CAPEX limits too.

[EEVblog]

I think this CS move is great, but I still think this mid range product is completely unnecessary.
The original proposal Altium had for Circuit Maker that had cheap paid timed licenses for various upgraded features was a clear winner. I saw a demo of this and it was close to release, but they scrapped it and changed direction and gave CM away and then produced this mid range Circuit Studio. Silly.

[LabSpokane]

I wonder how scared PCB software manufacturers are that Kicad will become a viable alternative?

I doubt they are worried. They know it's never going to be good enough (not just technically) to convince companies to take it up instead of the established tools.

Not many astute business people are going to gamble their future on free. Free and open software has a few successes, but there are at least 100x examples of failures where development stopped suddenly due to personality conflicts, loss of interest, etc.

[LabSpokane]

I think this CS move is great, but I still think this mid range product is completely unnecessary.
The original proposal Altium had for Circuit Maker that had cheap paid timed licenses for various upgraded features was a clear winner. I saw a demo of this and it was close to release, but they scrapped it and changed direction and gave CM away and then produced this mid range Circuit Studio. Silly.

The free tool is stupid in my opinion from a business standpoint. It got a lot of people developing PCBs, but from a CADSoft business standpoint, it was totally pointless.  The business was sold twice in quick succession for a reason. 

The $1000 professional stepping stone is brilliant from the standpoint of getting the one person shows into the game. I appreciate the simpler interface. There is still a lot of sophistication there.

Altium needs to shitcan circuit maker and sell a crippled version of studio for $10-20/mo.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder how scared PCB software manufacturers are that Kicad will become a viable alternative?

I doubt they are worried. They know it's never going to be good enough (not just technically) to convince companies to take it up instead of the established tools.

Not many astute business people are going to gamble their future on free. Free and open software has a few successes, but there are at least 100x examples of failures where development stopped suddenly due to personality conflicts, loss of interest, etc.

True but if it gets to the point of being decent, they then it's potentially less risky as it can be maintained independently & not be at risk from the supplier doing something stupid,hiking maintain cost etc.
There may be an opportunity for someone to offer a paid support service.

[Ice-Tea]

So, like, Altium is modifying their licence/subscription policies? I'm so surprised!

[LabSpokane]

I wonder how scared PCB software manufacturers are that Kicad will become a viable alternative?

I doubt they are worried. They know it's never going to be good enough (not just technically) to convince companies to take it up instead of the established tools.

Not many astute business people are going to gamble their future on free. Free and open software has a few successes, but there are at least 100x examples of failures where development stopped suddenly due to personality conflicts, loss of interest, etc.

True but if it gets to the point of being decent, they then it's potentially less risky as it can be maintained independently & not be at risk from the supplier doing something stupid,hiking maintain cost etc.
There may be an opportunity for someone to offer a paid support service.

Being the capitalist pigdog swine that I am, I always look at it from a point of labor costs. The minute I dedicate a software engineer to maintaining something like KiCad, it's $100K per year minimum, and that's to do everything wrong.  Doing it somewhat right starts at $500K, minimum.  That means I would need dozens of seats to justify that expenditure. While certainly possible, I don't see many companies jumping into something like that - at least not successfully over the long term.

Even the custom ERP programs of yore required several bodies to maintain.

[PCB.Wiz]

I wonder how scared PCB software manufacturers are that Kicad will become a viable alternative?

I doubt they are worried. They know it's never going to be good enough (not just technically) to convince companies to take it up instead of the established tools.

Of course they are worried. That concern is partly what is driving this new positioning.

Companies are already using open source tools and products, middle management may just not realise how much.

Many here are likely posting on Chrome, and using Python in their daily tasks.
Some will be Debugging using Eclipse and some will be compiling on GCC
Even a dig into the DOC section of  expensive commercial EDA tools, finds licenses for Python, Pearl, GNUxx, Creative Commons etc

[PCB.Wiz]

Not many astute business people are going to gamble their future on free. Free and open software has a few successes, but there are at least 100x examples of failures where development stopped suddenly due to personality conflicts, loss of interest, etc.

This is only partly right, by focusing on 'free' you miss the real point.
Your second comment gets closer, and nicely shows the importance of Critical Mass in the Open Source arena.
(There are also many commercial EDA tools that are no longer with us. Being 'not free' is no guarantee of longevity )

Do you use Chrome, Python, Eclipse, OpenOffice (or variants) or GCC ? 
Those are all open source projects, that have reached critical mass, and are widely used by people in business.

[LabSpokane]

The $995 price for Circuit Studio is now live on Newark. Annual maintenance is $150.

http://www.newark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?pageSize=25&st=altium&catalogId=15003&categoryId=800000004017&langId=-1&storeId=10194

[leonhart88]

Wait, so now you can buy Circuit Studio for $995 and then upgrade to Altium Designer for an additional $1495??

So you can get Altium Designer for <$3000?

[tszaboo]

Wait, so now you can buy Circuit Studio for $995 and then upgrade to Altium Designer for an additional $1495??

So you can get Altium Designer for <$3000?

Probably not. Even if you will try it, they will just tell you that was for the original price.

[bombledmonk]

Wait, so now you can buy Circuit Studio for $995 and then upgrade to Altium Designer for an additional $1495??

So you can get Altium Designer for <$3000?

Read that more carefully....
CircuitStudio license holders are eligible for an exclusive upgrade option at
$1,495USD* off list price of a new Altium Designer license.

[leonhart88]

Wait, so now you can buy Circuit Studio for $995 and then upgrade to Altium Designer for an additional $1495??

So you can get Altium Designer for <$3000?

Read that more carefully....
CircuitStudio license holders are eligible for an exclusive upgrade option at
$1,495USD* off list price of a new Altium Designer license.

Ah, righto.

Regardless, the new pricing for CS seems much more reasonable than before.

[jmarkwolf]

I paid the full price and I am not irked .

I've been using it extensively since it was released  (and moaning at Altium to get behind it). The lifetime support, maintenance and upgrades seem like a pretty fair reward for being an early adopter.

I'm glad to see the product moving forward again and at <$1000 it is an absolute steal.

Same here.

I've been using Altium Designer for years, and Protel for years before that. Circuit Studio is missing some familiar features, but I can live with it. Never used 80% of the Altium bloat anyway.

I bought Circuit Studio for home/retirement use when it was first released (negotiated a lower price), and am thrilled to get lifetime free updates (if it's true).

I wish they would offer options to go back to the "standard" Altium menus and include their Gerber editor. Maybe on a subsequent release. (yeah, right  )

[jmarkwolf]

I've been using Circuit Studio for over a year, not real happy with Altium's lack of support. But today I got an email, on July 6 CS price will drop to $995 with $150 yearly maintenance. Those who have paid the full price (up to $3k) will get a lifetime subscription to updates, no maintenance fees ever. Long awaited update v1.2 was released and a promise of v2 by the end of the year.

Glad to see it not dying. Those who paid the full price may be irked, but the lifetime subscription should ease the pain. Hope Altium/Newark does a better job this round.

I wonder if you could post that message or copy it to me. I'm a registered owner and got no such notice.

I tried to update my software today but my support expired in April. I suppose

I could renew my support for the new fee, but if they're waiving the fee to early adopters I'd rather spend the money on something else.

[PCB.Wiz]

Can someone with the latest CS list the File export / Save As options ?
Altium have lots of fluff, but that important detail is missing ?

eg DXF export / Import ?
P-CAD Export / Import ?
any other ASCII file exports / Imports ?

[PCB.Wiz]

... and include their Gerber editor.

There is always GerbView in KiCad, GerbV in gEDA, and a commercial GerbView (http://www.softwarecompanions.com/gbupdate.html)  is also affordable & looks actively supported ?