Altium Circuit Studio??

[dhofer]

Not sure if this is taking the place of CircuitMaker or not...... http://www.circuitstudio.com/

Also, here is the news release: http://www.altium.com/en/altium/press-center/press-releases/altium-and-element14-partner-distribute-new-pcb-design-tool

[free_electron]

looks like a paid version

my guess :
circuitmaker : free - cloud based
circuitstudio - paid in several levels, local storage
Altium Designer : big enterprise.

[Rufus]

Strange that the owners of Eagle want to become a 'distribution partner' for a direct competitor to eagle. 

Strange that Altium think they need a 'distribution partner' for a software product.

Looks like that press release has been pulled at the moment.

[EEVblog]

Strange that Altium think they need a 'distribution partner' for a software product.

Yep, dumb.
And Farnell, WTF? 

[EEVblog]

Pulled press release is here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:24RNCM9JMkgJ:www.altium.com/en/altium/press-center/press-releases/altium-and-element14-partner-distribute-new-pcb-design-tool+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

Altium and element14 Partner to Distribute New PCB Design Tool CircuitStudio

Master distribution agreement will provide easy access to the global PCB Design community

Sydney, Australia – November 12, 2014 - Altium Limited, a global leader in Electronic Design Automation, native 3D PCB design systems (Altium Designer) and embedded software development toolkits (TASKING), today announced a partnership with element14 to distribute CircuitStudio, a new easy-to-use PCB Design tool based on Altium technology. CircuitStudio will be available in early 2015 and sold through the element14 Design Center.

The partnership between Altium and element14 realizes the vision of making modern PCB design tools available to a broader market. In doing so, it creates a closer connection between PCB design tools from Altium and component vendors.

CircuitStudio will provide users with an interface that will make it easy for the user to get up to speed but at the same time deliver a set of functionality powerful enough for professional use. The benefits for the users will be based on straight-forward schematic capture and project management tools as well as a powerful PCB design engine that supports 3D PCB editing.

While availability is planned for early 2015, both Altium and element14 will invite interested users to participate in the Beta process for the product. More information and details can be found on www.circuitstudio.com and www.element14.com/altiumcs.

“We are excited about the partnership with element14 and the benefits this will bring to PCB designers,” said Altium CTO, Jason Hingston. “With CircuitStudio, we will deliver a product with a modern interface that will be easy to use yet powerful enough for professionals. More than 25 years of Altium R&D experience around PCB design tools built the foundation for a product that designers can pick up and design with when needed and we are looking forward to the launch of CircuitStudio together with element14.”

David Shen, Group Chief Technology Officer for element14, added: “I am delighted we are able to announce this strategic partnership with Altium. With CircuitStudio, we are able to meet the needs of more professional design engineers who demand a simple yet powerful EDA tool with the features and functionalities to complete a complex PCB design”.

“CircuitStudio is a perfect fit for element14 and its customers. It complements our existing range of software tools that are already sold through element14, and offers electronics design engineers a natural upgrade path for more complex PCB designs and greater degree of productivity through efficient project management tools.”

[EEVblog]

looks like a paid version
my guess :
circuitmaker : free - cloud based
circuitstudio - paid in several levels, local storage
Altium Designer : big enterprise.

Either that, or free Circuit Maker has been dropped entirely.
Maybe Element 14 realise Eagle isn't scale to the high end?

[george graves]

Whatever Altium is doing.....I'm completely lost.   

[LordNobady]

All Altium had to do was sell Altium Designer with limits for a lower prize.
It seems thy fail even at that.

What are they thinking?

[mrpackethead]

Im going to be grumpy if altium gives away all the good stuff for free.   We who have just paid for all that stuff.

Well, they better make the subscription pretty cheap!

[LordNobady]

Im going to be grumpy if altium gives away all the good stuff for free.   We who have just paid for all that stuff.

Well, they better make the subscription pretty cheap!

Subscription cheap? I don't think so. the CEO has to be payed to. 

[GK]

The Circuitmaker site still appears to be up. This new one is even less informative, though I notice that they are spruiking "local storage" as one of the packages features:

"Local Storage
Manage your projects on your machines, the way that works for you."




Perhaps Circuitstudio is supposed to be a cloud-free or cloud-storage optional version of Circuitmaker, though one would think that would pretty much make the latter redundant, assuming that the aim was to actually earn some revenue from Circuitmaker by selling upgrades. Why would they need two paid subscription low-end packages?

I think Altium has too many of the types of workers employed that have to continuously invent and reinvent reasons for their ongoing employment. Or maybe some head honcho pulling the strings has ADHD, I dunno. All this pre-release hoo-haa seems rather not thought through and a bit daft.
 

 

[sleemanj]

Differentiating AD and CircuitMaker is understandable, but (one assumes) that this new Circuit Studio is Circuit Maker with less limits, so... why on earth another brand, what's wrong with Circuit Maker PRO, or Circuit Maker Local, or Circuit Maker Notretarded

Crazy.

And Element14/Farnell to distribute it?  That. Makes. No. Sense.

[george graves]

Circuit Maker Notretarded

Dont' count it out... the domain is available

[Eternauta]

CircuitStudio seems an answare to Digikey/Mentor Schematics&Layout Designer. A simplyfied interface for user not using the tools day-by-day but with enough features to be useful for low/medium complexity boards.

[ehughes]

Isn't Element14 the owner of EAGLE?   

[ElektroQuark]

Yes. That's the funny thing about all this.

[LordNobady]

Element has the choice, only sell Eagle and miss the income from Circuit Studio, or promote and sell Circuit studio with the chance that it will take over Eagle. It is a fun one

[nixfu]

This has all the symptoms of a classic Altium screw up all over it.   

[zapta]

The press release mentions Tasking IDE by Altium. Never seen it mentioned here.  Is it any good?

They create a fresh domain for each product (e.g. http://www.tasking.com). That's brand dilution IMO.


Edit: reading the Tasking press release, Altium recognizes that Mac OSX support is an important product feature. Hopefully the Tasking team will talk with the Circuit Maker team (where Mac OSX support is even more important).

"Given the growing popularity of Mac OS X and the development of ARM Cortex-M based embedded applications connecting to applications on the iPhone and iPad platforms, we're excited to offer our TASKING Embedded Development Tools to Mac users," said Harm-Andre Verhoef, Product Manager TASKING. “Altium's product offering will empower embedded ARM based developments and provide Mac users with the tools to bring their embedded applications to life."

Previously, embedded-application developers that preferred Mac computers relied on virtual machines hosting the Windows operating system within OS X in order to run an embedded cross compiler. This led to an inefficient workflow and a variety of challenges, including problems connecting a debug probe reliably to the debugger running inside the virtual machine. The native port to OS X of the TASKING compiler breaks down the barriers for developing embedded applications for Mac users, while allowing them to work efficiently in their platform of choice. Cooperation with STMicroelectronics made it possible to offer in-circuit debug capabilities with the Eclipse integrated TASKING debugger, using the USB port on the Mac to connect to the ST-LINK/V2 debug probe.

[Zad]

This seems to prove what many people have said that Eagle just isn't cutting it, and the developers don't show any signs of actually advancing the product enough. Lots and lots of words of reassurance, but it still looks and feels clunky and is just a dead end.

I'm sure I would love the product if i had a couple of hundred hours to use it in anger, but I'd still rather use an old copy of Protel 99.

Having said all this, I haven't the foggiest what Altium are playing at. They had a clear product differentiation, but not they have just confused the situation.

[Zeta]

CircuitStudio seems an answare to Digikey/Mentor Schematics&Layout Designer. A simplyfied interface for user not using the tools day-by-day but with enough features to be useful for low/medium complexity boards.

Exactly what I thought. Born as a result of market pressure as an answer to Digikey/Mentor and Mouser/NI offering. (I wouldn't be surprised of a RS/Zuken deal )

I think the E14 deal makes perfect sense for E14 (and Altium has nothing to loose). Probably E14 realized Eagle was not good enough to compete with the new offerings and needed better integration with their store.

Also, currently to buy an Altium Licence you have to talk to a sales representative (get a sales person in your office), whereas on E14 you will probably just buy the licence as you do with any other product on their catalog no human involved in the transaction lower sales overhead (Actually I would only offer email support instead of phone support to further cut down costs)

[ehughes]

The press release mentions Tasking IDE by Altium. Never seen it mentioned here.  Is it any good?

Tasking was another product purchased by Altium.   It is a rock solid compiler toolchain (used by the Automotive industry).   

[Bored@Work]

I won't be surprised if that group CTO of Farnell didn't know Farnell owns Eagle or didn't know what it is. Must have been a fine "of shit" moment when some underling told him.

[IanJ]

Hi all,

Element14 responded to a query I made about where EaglePCB sits in all this, per below.
Ian.

The way management see this is that EAGLE PCB is going to take care of
the low end while Circuit Studio will take care of the high end. Circuit
Studio is still almost 2x the price of an EAGLE Pro and it's going to
have yearly maintenance.
 
Farnell is still comitted to EAGLE and will continue to invest in it, to
provide for the needs of the lower end market. Circuit Studio is cheap
but only from Altium's perspective.

The goal is that they complement each other.

[tszaboo]

I've asked the people from Altium and Farnell today on the Munich messe. Cm is the free version, cs is the paid one. Farnell will distibute them. Release time in january next year. Nothing about the price or features, they did not have a demo.