Altium
Next generation electronics design solutions
Three things are converging to create the perfect storm for electronics designers: technology, globalization, and the recession.
Technology continues to pull away ever more rapidly. The ubiquity of the Internet continues unabated. And electronics designers are those tasked with capturing and taming that technology for the benefit of mankind and shareholders.
Globalization means that we are no longer geographically isolated from others doing this, that others are doing so more affordably, and are increasingly creating more exciting stuff.
Finally, the recession. You've tamed the technology, and for once the competition has been beaten. Only problem is, no-one can now afford to buy the product.
For all of us, these are times for new methods, new approaches, new solutions and new perspectives.
Only one thing is certain: not to change will be disastrous, witness General Motors and Lehman Brothers
Altium itself is not immune to this. So we have embarked on a radical overhaul of how we deliver our next-generation solution to customers. Our company and our solution have always been for the individual engineer. And so we have changed our pricing with dramatic, permanent reductions designed to remove barriers from being able to adopt our unified solution, and we're changing the way our solution is purchased.
We're leading with a subscription model for Altium Designer that plugs designers into a continuous stream of updates and upgrades. And for US$195 per month, designers will now have a single solution that covers hardware, software and programmable hardware that keeps pace with the change in technology and trends.
Our objective? To talk directly to designers in their own language, to give designers the solution they need to be innovative and to design their next generation of electronic products using a holistic view of the design process. And innovation does not mean improved, more efficient, or first. It means radically different from the experience that's gone before.
It's Nintendo combining car airbag accelerometers with games graphics to create the Wii, and delivering a record annual profit of nearly US$3 billion in the worst downturn in over 60 years.
In doing this, Altium seeks to change the way that electronics design is done. The needs of today's internet generation will not be met by designing products using yesterday's rule book. It must be discarded.
This new position means that our solution is affordable enough for every engineer to consider and buy, and be comfortable about doing so. Individual engineers are now able to break through a "price-innovation" barrier. Large organizations can now afford to tool up their design teams with a solution that always remains current and which can replace a disparate collection of loosely-connected point tools.
Back to that confluence of forces. Globalization cuts across any argument that innovation is somehow restricted to who you are or where you work (either in the company sense or the geographic sense). For some of us, this is unnerving. But for all of us, this is an opportunity if we adopt the right mindset, remove the barriers to innovation, and focus on designing new user experiences. Because innovation is not a function of geography, anyone can be innovative.
So how has this new position of Altium's been received in the market? To some it's been confronting, to others it's been invigorating. Kevin Morris of FPGA Journal called it a return to the grass roots for engineers. Andy Shaughnessy of online magazine PCB007 called it design tool "populism".
Either way, our objective remains to provide the best possible solution to every designer, to enable them to design the next generation of connected, intelligent devices in new, holistic ways. The debate would be rhetoric without the changes we have made. Yet the debate about the future of electronics design, and the part we all play in that future, is one worth having, and is a future worth being part of.
Toss out the design rule book and rethink what's possible. Find out more.
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