Altium Designer vs. Cadence Allegro & Cadence Orcad.

Dr. Marty,

Was your reply pre-formulated by the sales department (or what's left of it)
or your marketing folks (which are good)?
Based on your reply I did my homework as well. First I tried to talk myself
into reading something positive in what you guys just did. Then I did some
research.
Forgive me my stupidity... I am just an engineer, which makes me wonder
"what makes me so important"? Apparently my banking account.
Is it my naivity buying tools from a small vendor? I thought your
organisation is strong enough. But now I have tools I paid 2.5x of what I
should have paid and in addition I lost my contact. Shortly after I bought,
my sales contact got fired... or how you may call it smartly "restructured".
If I would have known that this happens, I could have bought also an even
cheaper tool from the web. I was buying into a partnership and relationship,
which Altium just destroyed. Is customer relationship via web only really
the answer?

Your comments about the financial status surprised me. If I would be a
larger share holder of Altium I would be sleepless. Gladly I sold my Altium
stock in 2007.
.... Yes, by reading through your financial reports I can see that you made
more money compared to the previous period last year. And Altium made
finally profit by end of 2008. But it appears to me like you are currently
burning through all this cash. Your cash is down by almost $4M in Q3
compared to the quarter before. What did you do with this money?

I would possibly conclude that each of your and every Altium engineer's
paycheck should state "What makes YOU so important"?
8 weeks ago it was my sales contact. Tomorrow it may be you.
Is this what you wanted to accomplish with this price?

Let me summarize my experience:
I paid 2.5x more than today
My sales contact is gone
Your company eats more than you can cook.
So what do you think?
What should make ME so confident?
Why should I be convinced I made the right choice?

P.S.... I was evaluating your Nanoboard. If that's where your company spends
all their R&D money, then I might really have invested in the wrong vendor.

=========================
Stan Starinski
Web: [URL="http://www.Interengineers.org"]www.Interengineers.org[/URL] [URL="http://www.Nanoinfocenter.com"]www.Nanoinfocenter.com[/URL] Currently OFF for
maintenance
Consulting Engineer (EE+ME, ECAD+MCAD [3D/2D]), R&D + Prototype,
Embedded/Firmware ["C" or ASM for Microcontrollers], computers).