SYDNEY, Australia – 2 December 2010 – Hundreds of electronics companies in Australia and New Zealand are realizing enormous productivity gains, with more than 81 per cent experiencing improvements of up to six times or more.
It augurs well for local companies operating in a global industry that sees new competitors in China, the rest of Asia and Eastern Europe emerging all the time to join established giants in Europe, the United States and Japan.
The results come from a survey conducted by listed Sydney-based electronics design software company Altium. Thousands of electronics engineers and designers across the world use Altium’s software in companies ranging from Australian icons such as Cochlear and ResMed to overseas icons such as NASA and Bang & Olufsen.
Altium surveyed new customers in the United States late in 2009 to find out their attitudes to Altium and to the competitive and technology pressures they faced. The company wanted to ask similar questions of its customers closer to home, and completed the survey in Australia and New Zealand in August.
In addition to the productivity gains customers experienced, Altium also learned:
• Australian and New Zealand customers’ willingness to be advocates for Altium is not slowing, with 88 per cent saying they felt happy to recommend Altium to colleagues.
• Of customers that had switched from another electronic design software product, 68 per cent said Altium Designer made them more efficient. And 77 per cent preferred the learning curve of Altium Designer.
• Helping customers is central to Altium’s business. So the company is relieved to find that it is living up to its promise: 80 per cent of those surveyed who used Altium’s Technical Support specialists in the past 18 months found value. And 88 per cent rated Altium’s Training Courses better than average or excellent.
“Australia and New Zealand’s electronics design sector is holding its own on the world stage,” said Andrew Mansfield, Vice President Asia-Pacific at Altium. “This is great news for our collective long-term ability to play outside just the resources sector. One day, those resources will run out, or demand for them will change. Having a vibrant electronics design sector, with original products being created for worldwide markets, helps diversify our economy.
“Everyone’s future will be electronic. The next step that we see is the increased connection of all sorts of devices and products to the internet, so that data are shared and communities of like-minded people form in new ways.
“We all know that more and more products, from cars to vacuum cleaners, contain more and more electronics. Altium is in business to help designers make a difference in world. And our software product development will help them make those internet connections as part of their designs. So it’s encouraging to know that word of Altium’s ease of use and unique unified design platform continues to spread amongst engineers and project and executive management.”
More information on Altium Designer is on Altium’s web site and at the Altium Wiki.
Note to bloggers, journalists, and analysts: Altium is available to present full survey results and customers are open to interviews.
ENDS
Contacts:
Jeff Hardison
McClenahan Bruer
www.mcbru.com
Telephone: +1-503-546-1009
Email: jeff@mcbru.com
Alan Smith
Altium Limited
www.altium.com
Telephone: +61 2 8622 8109
Email: alan.smith@altium.com
About Altium
Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) creates electronics design software based on the belief that anyone who wants to create electronic products that make a difference should be able to do so. Altium’s unified electronics design environment links all aspects of electronics product design in a single application that is priced to be as affordable as possible. This helps electronics designers break down barriers to innovation, harness the latest devices and technologies, manage their projects across broad design ‘ecosystems’, and create connected, intelligent designs.
Founded in 1985, Altium has headquarters in Sydney, and operates worldwide. For more information, visit www.altium.com.
Altium, Altium Designer and LiveDesign, and their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited, or its subsidiaries. All other registered or unregistered trademarks mentioned in this release are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed.
