> -----Original Message----- > From: Matt Pobursky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 2:30 PM > To: Protel EDA Forum > Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite > recommendation? > > On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 13:19:34 -0700, Brooks,Bill wrote: > > This is pretty damning commentary. And maybe a bit 'rash'... > > > > It does make me think hard about Mentor and the cost/vs. > productivity > > issues. > > If, I say,* IF * Altium is shifting its focus to the > embedded systems > > market as a way of garnering revenue... it may mean that they have > > come to the conclusion that there is no more or not enough > money to be > > made in the PCB design industry for them, for whatever > reason. I doubt > > this, because I know that Protel has the lion's share of > the market in > > the UK and the rest of the world for that matter... > > I've thought about this too and I think most EDA tool > companies lose sight of the fact that they are providing > tools to a niche market (relative to other desktop PC > software) with a limited size and the requirements haven't > changed all that much in the past 20 years. Yeah, geometries > have gotten smaller and frequencies higher, but schematic > capture and PCB design principles are still pretty much the same > -- physics doesn't change and the manufacturing is still > basically copper on a substrate. > > I know when it comes to tools, I want reliability and familiarity. > Something I can pick up, do my job efficiently, count on the > results and move on.
We could all still be doing it by hand. That was reliable and familiar. Too bad the component manufacturers just didn't shrink their parts 50% each time. A big old DIP40 would be 1/4 We could have kept the same artwork, and instead of reducing it 10 times, we could reduce it 20 times, cutting the PCB down to just 1/4 of what it was in the previous rev. A big old DIP40 would be the size of a DIP16, except it would be surrounded by a lot more tiny pins. > Making software more complex and "feature rich" -- whether > for serving the fractional percent of users that really > require the added features (but seldom used by the vast > majority) or for marketing purposes > -- seems to be more common every day. Why can't good software > be developed and maintained at a relatively stable feature > and bug-free level? I guess the software companies see no > increasing revenue stream with this model (since the "current > version" stays current, longer), even though it results in > the best product for the end user. So it actually pays to > produce buggy or otherwise deficient code, where you get to > charge the user for the fixes "in the next release" (service > pack, whatever -- heck, just change the name of the program > and charge an upgradge fee! ;-) ). Sheesh, I wish I could run > my business and write my software that way... How will ANY company survive if they sell you ONE - Bug Free, Featured Laden, Value Priced, application that you are so happy with you never need to upgrade? Come on, get real. Either they need to charge for bug fixes (bad) or charge for new features (ok), but whatever they do, they need to generate $$. Software companies have an entirely different model than us 'embedded' contractors or hardware manufacturing companies. They invest WAY more energy into a s/w product than we do in h/w products. Every product I know of (in personal terms) has the h/w development done in a fraction of the time the s/w is done. Over my career, the money paid to me for my work has been recovered over and over again in consumer product sales. I can spin a design into a different product will little effort and sell it again to all the people that have to have the latest gadget. Altium can't do that. Even if we were totally happy with 99SE, we wouldn't dump it just to have 2004 for no good reason. It has to have more features in order to make it attractive. I don't think it seems to be more common every day, I think it's been common from the beginning. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
