The Abandoned Altium HQ - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2011, 08:18:50 am
content: Altium HQ is all but abandoned now!http://www.realcommercial.com.au/property-offices-nsw-belrose-5786979My old desk was the far corner in photo 6Dave.

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2011, 10:52:57 am
content: Yep, but all things change. Hopefully times were good when you were there, and continue to be where you are now. When that pic was taken chances are Steve Jobs was still alive, but its impossible to go back so we plan tomorrow to be better, and enjoy the todays.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2011, 03:31:31 pm
content: Should have spent less money on buildings and more on fixing bugs and coming up withgoodideas.They seem to be doing small bug fix updates and adding libraries now and then but do you think there is any real development going on to help justify a subscription?I am doing a flex/rigid board at the moment, support to do that properly with more flexible layer stack and layer specific board cut outs would actually be useful unlike 75% of what they added in the last release.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2011, 10:02:28 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on October 09, 2011, 03:31:31 pmAltium's problem has never been good ideas, they are leaders in that field. The problem is good ideas that people want and need in day to day use, and that will make a sensible return for them.i.e They floated the company and spent every last cent of the shareholders money and the last 10 years on FPGA stuff thinking it was the future. The solution was great, but it wasn't practical on anything more than rudimentary designs and educational stuff. The market realised this long before Altium did, and they never bought into it. So it all was essentially a flop, and they never could cope with the support requirements anyway, just look at the lack of updates for new parts.As for their foray into hardware (which was once again, a nice solution), you need look no further than the yearly reports to see how much they made from hardware.And then of course they go into even wackier areas like the cloud and all this Morfik rubbish.It will never make them a cent, it is suicide to spend time and resources on it.Even the new Vault stuff, the usual story, nice concept, but only applicable to a small niche user base.QuoteAnd therein lies the problem.If they spent all their time and resources on the core tools (and priced it right), they would have the worlds best PCB tool that would own the beginner, low end professional, mid range professional, and a lot of the high end professional market too. The company would be worth a fortune.But not so, the company is now essentially worthless, CADsoft Eagle is worth more than they are, because they were not content with simply being the best PCB tool, they went off on too may flights of fancy.In the last 10 years, I'd say the only major advance they have made, and got right, that was usable to the general industry is the 3D component integration and modeling. Their 3D is the best in the business. Ok, maybe the FPGA pin swapping too works really well.How much work have they done on improving other core stuff like proper signal integrity, fabrication (like your requirement), simulation, and fixing long standing problems etc? The product speaks for itself.Dave.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 05:30:35 am
content: "Leadership without fear", managed to lose another 7.3c/share this FY.And still Nick Martin picks up his $360K...

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 05:34:11 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on October 09, 2011, 08:18:50 amCould make a nice HQ for the EEV lab!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 05:56:50 am
content: Quote from: DrGeoff on October 10, 2011, 05:30:35 amThe advantage now is that they have stripped all the fat and are bare bones. So that will look great on next years return because sales will remain the same as the plebs still buy the software because a lack of competition in that price/performance bracket.Rumor has it this is a classic technique readying themselves for a buyout.Still a far cry from the $7/share they were worth at one stage before they pissed it all away on stuff that didn't get any ROI.Dave.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 06:32:28 am
content: Can't see them going quite the way of MYOB, but you never know.Seems they are doing a lot of subscription based sales now.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 07:21:15 am
content: Quote from: DrGeoff on October 10, 2011, 06:32:28 amYeah, 18,000 or so subscribers say the current yearly report.Problem with that is that you have to continue to deliver what people want, and to do that you need resources.My guess is that most of the originals programmers will be gone within a yearDave.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 09:24:58 am
content: Nice office, let's convert it to a hacker space.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 10:17:02 am
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on October 10, 2011, 09:24:58 amNow THAT'S an idea!Dave.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2011, 05:55:47 pm
content: With the increasing tendency for companies to shed their physical facilities, I'm sure there would be a market in major cities for professional/commercial grade hacker spaces, with production grade CNC lathes/mills, printing, welding (you get the idea) facilities. It would cost an immense amount to set up and staff though.

author: mobbarley
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2011, 02:46:32 am
content: Depressing, I used to drive past it daily on the way to my office on Narabang Way and envy the lucky engineers who got to work there with all the electronic toys that they must have.....

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 11, 2011, 04:31:43 am
content: Quote from: mobbarley on October 11, 2011, 02:46:32 amPlenty of dev boards and other stuff there, but as far as the electronics lab went, I was better equipped at home.The hardware group has now folded completely.Dave.

author: mobbarley
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2011, 05:57:43 am
content: Perhaps I was just dreaming while driving to my painful job.. thankfully that was a few jobs ago.