Altium plans a new China innovation center and R&D center to support the move to “designed in China”
Beijing, China September 16, 2010 – Electronics design company Altium has announced its business strategy for China for the company’s new financial year.
The strategy includes continued investment in China, new services and support based in China, and new products and solutions.
”Since its formation, Altium has stuck to its philosophy of breaking the barriers that still often block innovation in electronics design,” said Roger Shen, Regional CEO for Altium Greater China.
“We don’t think having these barriers is acceptable to designers, especially to designers in China who continue to move from a focus on manufacturing to a focus on original design.
“Our role is to provide what is required to accelerate, support and advance this continued migration, and to support the next generation of Chinese electronics designers.”
Altium China plans to grow the company’s consulting capabilities and customer relations services, establish an Altium Designer customer and engineer community, and create an "ecosystem‟ to connect Altium, its partners and customers.
Altium will provide Chinese customers with design data migration, business process optimization consulting, and installation and implementation services.
In the area of training, Altium plans to build on the 46 public training courses it held last year with new certification course and on-demand training.
Altium plans to establish a China innovation centre to provide a new concept in skills development that goes beyond straightforward training in how to use Altium Designer. This will give Chinese designers new skills and techniques to tackle electronics design in new ways, and encourage new ways of thinking about how electronics design can be done.
Altium is also planning a new R&D Center, which will be manned by the newly created Chinese technical content development team. Currently consisting of seven members, the content team includes experienced engineers who will be working alongside specially selected graduate engineers. The initial focus of the content team will be developing design libraries and standard document and board design templates, a substantial proportion of which will be tailored for the local market. However, the team will also be working on technical content development for use as part of Altium Designer worldwide.
“Employing graduates alongside experience engineers and software developers is a commitment to nurturing the engineers of the future,” said Roger Shen. “It’s very important to Altium that new graduates are able to contribute right at the start of their careers, but also be supported by senior mentors. That is the structure we have created for this new team.”
To help make “designed in China” a reality for electronics designers, and in addition to recruiting new graduates to its new regional R&D center, Altium is also nurturing future electronic design talent. Altium China will continue to sponsor and support design competitions. Last financial year, Altium China granted licences for Altium Designer to more than 400 institutions and more than 7,000 contestants and teachers in various competitions.
ENDS
Contacts:
Deborah Wang
The Hoffman Agency
+86 10 6507 0985 ext 215 dwang@hoffman.com
Alan Smith
Altium Limited
+61 2 8622 8109 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.
