To all, My experience with Protel urged me to seek out this tool when I had the resources to buy it. We are/were an Accel house that daily struggle with this poorly envisioned nightmare. At first, the Protel buy out of Accel elated me. There were promises of a P-CAD import/export engine that would arrive. It did. Then came the release of P-CAD 2000, which simply mystified me. I believe it may have been a 'have cake and eat it too' syndrome that had erupted in management. It has been a disaster on both sides of the fence.
The common sense thing to do from a Protel users perspective would have been to adopt P-CAD users into 'the clan' with a very long free license for product migration. Given sensible timing, I am sure Protel would have been accepted as a much better tool. There may have been a loss of some customers, but a very hard established customer base would have been protected. I see in corporate mergers only one thing, money grubbing. That was working 'ok' for Protel until buying the same type of flagship product. Mergers of the same must disastrously lead to downsizing. At first, the fat is trimmed, but then the blade starts to rip at the flesh. I got out of one organization that did this. I heard of 'the smoke' from those that stayed on a little while longer. As a guess, I think P-CAD programmers were just as frightened to keep their jobs as the Protel regime. A hostile atmosphere like this eventually leads to the best seasoned programmers quitting just because the stress is not worth it. This may explain the missing SP's since SP6. On the subject of the autorouter, it has been explained to me P-CAD does have a fairly decent version in their Pro-Route line. As I had speculated before, I thought Protel would be given a flavor of this. History had written, Protel's simulation tools fell into the hands of P-CAD. Well, that did not happen in reverse. I thought it would have happened when the price of Protel shot up earlier this year. Nope..... Guess again. Why the price increase if the product did not improve at all ? Why the October date for beta testers when it should include those that ate the price increase ? I have been an advocate of Protel for quite some time and as a user I have encouraged sales. I thought Protel was offering exceptional support, when compared to many other CAD houses. I have applied to be a beta person, but I have not received no confirmation back at all. I read into this, silence is a great way of saying no. But, it is a poor way of treating your customers. No's cool, just say why and explain it. To me, ATS seems to be making a statement that SP support is now dead for Protel 99SE. The service attitude has changed and it has not been for the best. As for buying a site maintenance, my attitude is to 'put up or shut up' with an immediate upgrade before asking for more money. This is egg timer regime ? I cannot foresee spending money to become a beta tester right now. A limited time trial 'beta' would have been a more respectable way to go and everyone would have been happy. If the beta was worth it I could have argue for maintenance fees. P-CAD offers a six layer, 400 component buy in at $6K. Hey... isn't layer limiting enough ? It's 10K to get something that works with unlimited components with P-CAD 2001. That's the deal on that. IMHO Two days for companies not to place web site announcements are April 1st and October 31st. In the wake of fools ? Or tricks and not treats ? Fabian Hartery Research Engineer Guigne International Limited Paradise, Newfoundland A1L1C1 tel: 709-895-3819 fax: 709-895-3822 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: www.guigne.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
