Altium Drops ATS Product; Customers Object to `Pay for Bug Fixes' Model.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers SYDNEY, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 16, 2002 After considering complaints from long time customers, Altium has announced that it will scrap its current Altium Total Support (ATS) program and make all service packs for its products freely available to all customers. "In our haste to generate a more predictable revenue stream, we adopted the conventional `pay for bug fixes' model, so rampant in the EDA (1) (Electronic Design Automation) Using the computer to design, lay out, verify and simulate the performance of electronic circuits on a chip or printed circuit board. industry. In doing so, we lost sight of our primary focus," commented Nick Martin, Joint CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and founder of Altium. "The concept of ATS was a mistake on our part and represents an embarrassing departure from the core values of our company." Kayvan Oboudiyat, Joint CEO Altium, added: "Withholding technology and product fixes from our customers does not fit with the spirit in which this company was founded. We have realized our mistake and are taking measures to correct it. Altium's business model is based on providing true value to all customers by offering a real alternative to the rigid structures imposed by the larger EDA vendors." Altium will offer customers increased flexibility with choices for hotline phone support and pre-paid upgrades for those that require direct access to product support specialists, and/or predictable annual software costs. There will be no disadvantages for customers that prefer to maintain their software on an upgrade-by-upgrade basis. All current ATS contracts will be honored in full, with ATS customers continuing to receive both hotline phone support and product upgrades. For more information, customers can contact their local Altium Sales and Support Center. About Altium Limited Altium or Altium Limited is Australian CAD/CAE software company, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX code: ALU). The company was founded in 1985 in Hobart, Tasmania, to fill a need in the electronics industry for easy to use, PC-based ECAD software. Altium Limited (ASX ASX See: Australian Stock Exchange : ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) The high-speed CPU circuit that does calculating and comparing. Numbers are transferred from memory into the ALU for calculation, and the results are sent back into memory. Alphanumeric data are sent from memory into the ALU for comparing. ), trading as Protel International Limited (ASX: PRI PRI: see Institutional Revolutionary party. (Primary Rate Interface) An ISDN service that provides 23 64 Kbps B (Bearer) channels and one 64 Kbps D (Data) channel (23B+D), which is equivalent to the 24 channels of a T1 line. ) prior to August 6, 2001, is a leading global developer and supplier of desktop Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and embedded software Instructions that permanently reside in a ROM or flash memory chip. Embedded software may be immediately available to the CPU or, for faster execution, may be transferred to RAM first and then executed. design tools for the Microsoft Windows environment. Since the Company's foundation in 1985 and its release of the world's first Microsoft Windows-based EDA tool in 1991, Altium has continued to apply the most advanced software design methods to provide powerful, easy-to-use and affordable design software to engineers and electronics designers worldwide. Altium's current product brands include Protel, P-CAD, TASKING, Accolade, CircuitMaker and CAMtastic!. These products offer tailored solutions covering a range of hardware and software design processes. Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and operates a number of sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan and Europe, as well as maintaining a large reseller network in all other major markets. More information about the Company and its products and services may be obtained from our website at http://www.altium.com. Altium, Protel, Protel DXP DXP Design Explorer DXP Directory Exchange Protocol DXP Digital Extended Processor DXP Dynamic Xml Page , DXP, Design Explorer, nVisage, P-CAD, TASKING, Accolade, CircuitMaker, CAMtastic!, Situs [Latin, Situation; location.] The place where a particular event occurs. For example, the situs of a crime is the place where it was committed; the situs of a trust is the location where the trustee performs his or her duties of managing the trust. and Topological Autorouting and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited or its subsidiaries. All other registered or unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed. |
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