Tisk Tisk - Altium moving to China!

[Alex]

Protel '99... does anyone still have a copy of it? or somewhere to download?

It really is outdated and cumbersome in its use. If you want to learn Altium you should focus on later editions, eg. Summer 08 and after. Otherwise Eagle, Ki-Cad, gEDA, DesignSpark, Splan/Slayout should cover most of the hobbyist projects depending on your requirements.

[Mechatrommer]

so when the next rant video will be? its been long dave only made too formal and technical video

[Sal Ammoniac]

I've been hooked on a "borrowed" copy for the past few months

"Borrowed"? Hmmmm... I know a guy that's too cheap to buy any software. He just downloads the free 30 day trial of whatever he needs, installs it, and images the system disk. Every 30 days he simply re-images the system disk and keeps running the trial stuff forever.

[EEVblog]

Speaking of which, what package does MS use?

to do what ? as far as i know they don't make hardware. Anything with their name on is certainly outsourced

Microsoft have made hardware products from the very early 80's.

Dave.

[Hypernova]

Speaking of which, what package does MS use?

to do what ? as far as i know they don't make hardware. Anything with their name on is certainly outsourced

I would think that the xbox teams are internal?

[trentland]

http://www.z80.eu/ad_of_z80card.jpg

[mikemxyzzy]

Yes the xBox team is internal. It is in Mountain View, CA. As far as I know they use Cadence Allegro for board layout.

[Simon]

oh right yes of course they do the xbox - ok taken back 

[shadewind]

Yes the xBox team is internal. It is in Mountain View, CA. As far as I know they use Cadence Allegro for board layout.

It seems like Cadence products are used a lot in the very high end of PCB design. Is there something about them that makes them more appropriate for this than Altium or is it just for historical reasons?

[chscholz]

Some folks, notably the US secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the US National Science Foundation, etc. are quite concerned about China being on a trajectory of becoming a powerhouse of innovation.

Some sound-bites from Dr. Chu's presentation:
• In 2009, 51% of U.S. patents were awarded to non-U.S. companies. China has gone from 15th place to 5th in international patents. 
• The World Economic Forum ranks the U.S. 48th in quality of mathematics and science education. Source: Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited, 2010
• In less than 15 years, China has moved from 14th place to 2nd place in published research articles (behind the U.S.).
• China’s Tsinghua and Peking Universities are the two largest suppliers of students who receive PhD’s - in the United States.
• Eight of the ten global companies with the largest R&D budgets have established R&D facilities in China, India or both. In a survey of global firms planning to build new R&D facilities, 77 percent say they will build in China or India.
• An American company recently opened the world’s largest private solar R&D facility . . . in Xian, China

In my very limited experience, one of the nice things about China is that you don't need to look hard to find evidence to prove your point, whatever that may be. Then you turn around and find exactly the opposite.

Link to Kevin Chu's presentation:
http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/Chu_NationalPressClub112910.pdf

Genetic ethnicity has very little to do with it. What matters most is the culture and background where you were brought up and where you live. I can't see the current situation in China promoting innovative thinking and being outside the mainstream in the same way that Europe and North America does. Equally, I think that if you put innovative people in China, you stifle their talent.

[firewalker]

The only reason some specialists in U.S.A. worry about China is that a war against China won't be viable. 

[Simon]

well they'll soon be the richest nation and can buy weapons with it

[Zero999]

Why on earth would China go to war with the US? The US has many allies, China depends on them for trade and if it wasn't for the US, China wouldn't be as rich as it is, so they'd have far more to loose than gain from war. The only chance of war is if some nutter rises to power but that's unlikely.

[Simon]

true they have no reason to invade. But you never know what people are going to do

[Bored@Work]

well they'll soon be the richest nation and can buy weapons with it

20 years ago they would have thought about buying weapons. These days they are rapidly excelling their own production. Check http://www.sinodefence.com/ for a lot of information.

[Bored@Work]

Why on earth would China go to war with the US?

Read about Taiwan, who is protecting them, about the Taiwan Relations Act, and who thinks who owns Taiwan. Then you might understand.

[firewalker]

Why on earth would China go to war with the US? The US has many allies, China depends on them for trade and if it wasn't for the US, China wouldn't be as rich as it is, so they'd have far more to loose than gain from war. The only chance of war is if some nutter rises to power but that's unlikely.

I meant the opposite. US to declare war on China. It is a common practice for US. If China wasn't so powerful NATO would love to send "Democracy" to China.

[Zero999]

Read about Taiwan, who is protecting them, about the Taiwan Relations Act, and who thinks who owns Taiwan. Then you might understand.

I don't see how Taiwan is important enough to China for them to sacrifice all the trade and investment they receive from the US and it's allies and even from Taiwan itself? Taiwan is tiny compared to China. Again the Chinese loose more than they'll gain from conflict and the CCP know this which is why they haven't done anything about it.

There are other resource rich countries which the PRC could probably take, if they want to but they know they best way is to invest, in them so they sell out, rather than war; look at how much money China is investing in Africa, it's supposed to be aid but it's obvious they want something in return.

I meant the opposite. US to declare war on China. It is a common practice for US. If China wasn't so powerful NATO would love to send "Democracy" to China.

Same question again: the US benefit a lot from trade with China and if they can't even tackle Afghanistan then they must know China is out of the question.

Again there are other resource rich countries which the US could probably take, if they want to. Unfortunately the US doesn't seem to be so smartly investing in Africa as China.

The pattern is the same all over the world, once there's trade, communication and diplomacy, there's less chance of war which is why conflict is more common in countries with governments who don't get on with their neighbours.

[Mechatrommer]

invasion can take many forms nowadays. paradigm is one example of a tricky way.

[vr2whf]

I think the electronics R&D is diminishing in Australia.  I don't see much opportunity in Australia for the R&D engineer, especially in the field of electronics.
One of the classic example is the NEC Australia in Melbourne (near the lovely Monash Uni Clayton campus, my wife graduated there).  They were inventing some of the great things like broadband network equipement, set top box, 3G phone, but now they were all gone.

[Mechatrommer]

not just the altium, nokia and panasonic experiencing the same "China's wave" condition (job cut), so its been a bad industry (someone may already aware):
EETimes - Nokia to shed 7,000 jobs, jettison Symbian
EETimes - Panasonic to cut 17,000 jobs

[DrGeoff]

Hell yes, that is one huge mother of a mistake. A bit of a bugger for Dave too. Hope there was a bloody good redundancy.

I wonder if they are owned by a Chinese company or something now? There is this impression that China is now the centre of the world's economy and has suddenly acquired all the skills it needs for future growth. It is cheap right now, but sure as eggs is eggs, inflation will hit eventually, and there will be a shortage of trained and skilled people to do the jobs. Great at production, not so great at innovation.

Altium is a public company and will have to answer to its shareholders at the next AGM.
Hopefully questions will be asked as to the strategy.

[DrGeoff]

well they'll soon be the richest nation and can buy weapons with it

Their economic policies are currently a very powerful weapon.
Once you destroy the manufacturing capability of other nations and, after a generation, the skills are completely lost, you are left holding all the cards in the game.

[EEVblog]

Altium is a public company and will have to answer to its shareholders at the next AGM.
Hopefully questions will be asked as to the strategy.

The shares have practically all but stopped trading these days.
It wouldn't surprise anyone if they tried to take the company private again given the record low share price of around 10 cents.

Dave.

[DrGeoff]

Altium is a public company and will have to answer to its shareholders at the next AGM.
Hopefully questions will be asked as to the strategy.

The shares have practically all but stopped trading these days.
It wouldn't surprise anyone if they tried to take the company private again given the record low share price of around 10 cents.

Dave.

That explains it. Their employee share scheme and stock options must be looking dismal then.
I wonder if the directors are purposely driving the share price low in order to create favourable conditions for a buy-back?