OrCAD price drop

[AndyC_772]

I've just received an email offer from Parallel Systems, the UK distributor.

OrCAD PCB Standard, permanent licence, inc. 1 yr maintenance, £400 + VAT until Sept 25th (down from £2300).

Also, 1 year rental for £230+VAT.

[olkipukki]

As far I know, the offer has been extended till December.

If somebody missed it, speak to your distributor

[electrolust]

All of the above could be mitigated by having mousewheel zoom without a modifier - you can easily zoom out/in to pan with one finger. Doesn't have to be the default either, just be able to set it somewhere.

I like it, but yes it is insane for this not be be settable.

No high DPI support, 8 point text in the NIH menus, ...

17.4 works fine with HiDPI here. PCB however does not. GRRR

[electrolust]

I think they will keep this offer until the end of September

Still valid today, mid-October. Even cheaper than the $750 I paid just a few months ago. Just buy it.

[profanum429]

Yep, $630 with the dongle ($100 for that) if you're interested in going that route. I'm about to finalize my order tomorrow; still going to try to get a cheap CIS addon, last attempt resulted in a pretty stupid price, haha.

[apurvdate]

Seems discounted price is now promoted in other regions as well. I received a promotional email from a dealer in India.
Here is the link if anyone needs https://www.sunstreamglobal.com/products/orcad-pcb-designer/
Amount is nearly 630$ after adding taxes.
NOTE: I don't know the authenticity of the dealer - not listed as channel partner on OrCad website.

[Pitrsek]

Actually a good starting point for OrCad distributors would be to start answering emails and calls...  you know to speak to people that might actually buy something from you. I feel in such a capable hands already 
Sorry for the rant.

[chris_leyson]

£400 for 1 year support isn't a bad deal at all. Back when I used Orcad professional Parallel Systems were very helpful usually providing same day support if the problem couldn't be fixed over the phone. The standard Orcad/Allegro package has a lot of useful features disabled but you can still produce good quality PCBs. The CIS option would be nice but maintaining a database of parts is a full time job in itself and Excel or Access will do the job. All of my previous employers have either used Zuken or Orcad and I've stuck with Orcad as it was the first layout tool I learnt. It's all a question of how quickly you can learn the GUI and workflow.

[nctnico]

The CIS option would be nice but maintaining a database of parts is a full time job in itself and Excel or Access will do the job.

Not so much. Create a part once and be done with it. It is not much work to get a component database going. CIS will happily use an MS-Access database so you can use MS-Access to maintain the database.

[Pitrsek]

So it seems that we have another episode of "Screw you, Europe!" on our hands  . With exception of Great Britain, Ireland and Italy, ema-eda is unable to serve European customers.
Price from local distributor is 999eur for OrCad standard(WFH promotion), including 2years of subscription. Regular price is 2.5k, incl 1year sub. No special discount on other Orcad options available at this time. If you tough that database library would be a worthy addition, you'd need  add a bit less than 3k for CIS option. So for 4k you get OrCad standard with database lib. Which apart from being out of my "Sunday evening engineering" budget, is also in Altium's "end of fiscal year" price range. If this is a way how they want to grow market share 

[olkipukki]

With exception of Great Britain, Ireland and Italy, ema-eda is unable to serve European customers.

In my understanding, EMA EDA serves only USA customers.

https://www.orcad.com/buy/cadence-channel-partner-listing?name=1735&country=

Price from local distributor is 999eur for OrCad standard(WFH promotion), including 2years of subscription. Regular price is 2.5k, incl 1year sub. No special discount on other Orcad options available at this time. If you tough that database library would be a worthy addition, you'd need  add a bit less than 3k for CIS option. So for 4k you get OrCad standard with database lib. Which apart from being out of my "Sunday evening engineering" budget, is also in Altium's "end of fiscal year" price range. If this is a way how they want to grow market share 

Do you mean FlowCAD guys?

I guess mentality of these people -  all or nothing

[AndyC_772]

It's all a question of how quickly you can learn the GUI and workflow.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Design-Using-Capture-Layout/dp/0128176849/

Helped me no end - I got a "free" copy included when I bought the software.

[Pitrsek]

yes, FlowCAD guys.
EMA EDA can serve Italy, Ireland and UK.
All or nothing - indeed it seems that's the name of game.

[AndyC_772]

Just to confirm, the price of £400+VAT is still available in the UK from Parallel Systems.

I've just bought a new copy of 17.4 to get proper support for Windows 10 and high DPI monitors.

Apparently PSpice is now also included, so it'll be interesting to see if it's worth using instead of LTSpice. Looking forward to seeing what else Cadence have been up to over the last 5 years.

[chris_leyson]

Be careful when using PSpice, read the following paper by Mike Engelhardt and you will think twice about using PSpice.
https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/lt-journal-article/ltjournal-v24n4-01-df-spicedifferentiation-mikeengelhardt.pdf