Farnell Buys CadSoft!

On 24.09.2009 16:57, James Morrison wrote:

Hi Everyone,

 

For those who didn't see this in the German forums, I'll repost the

link...

 

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/09/24/47028/premier-farnell-buys-design-software-firm-cadsoft.htm

 

 

I actually stumbled into Element14 last week and say that they had some

stuff on EAGLE and that they linked to Newark (Farnell company) with pages

listing that they were selling EAGLE.  I thought that was odd.

 

I'm not sure what this means for all of us.  Interesting days ahead...

Interesting indeed - and exciting, too!

It is true, Farnell has acquired CadSoft yesterday.

But don't be alarmed, everything will continue as before.

Our German office has moved into a new building today, so

it may happen that tomorrow we can't be reached by telephone

or email for a while, since that's when the phone lines will

be switched over. We'll do our best to minimize the blackout,

of course.

Klaus Schmidinger

--

_______________________________________________________________

Klaus Schmidinger                       Phone: +49-8635-6989-10

CadSoft Computer GmbH                   Fax:   +49-8635-6989-40

Hofmark 2                               Email:   kls@cadsoft.de

D-84568 Pleiskirchen, Germany           URL:     www.cadsoft.de

_______________________________________________________________

Klaus Schmidinger schreef:

On 24.09.2009 16:57, James Morrison wrote:

Hi Everyone,

 

For those who didn't see this in the German forums, I'll repost the

link...

 

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/09/24/47028/premier-farnell-buys-design-software-firm-cadsoft.htm

 

 

I actually stumbled into Element14 last week and say that they had some

stuff on EAGLE and that they linked to Newark (Farnell company) with pages

listing that they were selling EAGLE.  I thought that was odd.

 

I'm not sure what this means for all of us.  Interesting days ahead...

 

Interesting indeed - and exciting, too!

 

It is true, Farnell has acquired CadSoft yesterday.

But don't be alarmed, everything will continue as before.

 

Our German office has moved into a new building today, so

it may happen that tomorrow we can't be reached by telephone

or email for a while, since that's when the phone lines will

be switched over. We'll do our best to minimize the blackout,

of course.

 

Klaus Schmidinger

I may hope so. Over the past few years I've seen a lot of companies

being bought by other companies and the least you can say was that

things change.

We'll see what happens between now and about 3 years...

Hello Jan De Ceuster !:

....

It is true, Farnell has acquired CadSoft yesterday.

But don't be alarmed, everything will continue as before.

 

Our German office has moved into a new building today, so

it may happen that tomorrow we can't be reached by telephone

or email for a while, since that's when the phone lines will

be switched over. We'll do our best to minimize the blackout,

of course.

Hmmm .....

I may hope so. Over the past few years I've seen a lot of companies

being bought by other companies and the least you can say was that

things change.

 

We'll see what happens between now and about 3 years...

Yes me too ... I have in last few years only bad experiences with

similar "fusions" :-(.

But maybe Eagle will become a lot of new features, and I hope without

"Farnell" prices ...

regards

--

Grzegorz Zalot

complex ltd.

office tel/fax : +48 32 2505840

mobil : +48 501 301515

http://www.complex.org.pl/

"It also plans to extend the CAD software's capabilities by linking it to their databases"

I just hope it won't result in bloatware....

I see an overwhelming risc in the software developing too much farnell components/purchasing features

and forgetting about functionallity and natural flow of the cad features, like so many other programs turning to bloatware.

Grzegorz Zalot wrote on Fri, 25 September 2009 05:45

Hello Jan De Ceuster !:

.....

I may hope so. Over the past few years I've seen a lot of companies

being bought by other companies and the least you can say was that

things change.

 

We'll see what happens between now and about 3 years...

 

Yes me too ... I have in last few years only bad experiences with

similar "fusions" :(.

 

But maybe Eagle will become a lot of new features, and I hope without

"Farnell" prices ...

Yes, those are some of my concerns.  EAGLE has a great value for the cost

of the license.  But other tools (Altium in particular) are constantly

bringing their prices down and increasing their value.  So that is

something we'll have to watch.

The upside, is that with extra resources perhaps we can see a larger

increase in the value side of things (long standing wish lists and some

higher order functionality like differential routing etc).  That would be a

good thing.

I do agree with the above posts though.  These types of mergers always

start by saying nothing will change.  That usually turns out to not be

true.  Maybe in this case it will, but history tells me that rarely

happens.

For one thing, Farnell is a public company and trades on the London Stock

Exchange

http://www.premierfarnell.com/premier_farnell/profile/

So we're going from a private company to a pubic company.  Being private

always allowed CadSoft to put quality above the bottom line.  Now the

owners are legally obligated to do whatever makes the shareholders money

and software quality is something that bean counters rarely add to the

equation.

So I have some concerns.  It could be great and I have to think that Klaus

and Rudi wouldn't sell out their company that they slaved over for the last

20 years.  But the reality is that it is now out of their hands, perhaps

with some constraints placed on the sale.

So we'll see where this goes.

Cheers,

James.

--

James Morrison  ~~~  Stratford Digital

email:  james@eaglecentral.ca

web: http://www.eaglecentral.ca

Specialising in CadSoft EAGLE

• Online Sales to North America

• Electronic Design Services

• EAGLE Enterprise Toolkit

--

Browser access to CadSoft Support Forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca

Greg schreef:

"It also plans to extend the CAD software's capabilities by linking it to their databases"

 

I just hope it won't result in bloatware....

I see an overwhelming risc in the software developing too much farnell components/purchasing features

and forgetting about functionallity and natural flow of the cad features, like so many other programs turning to bloatware.

 

 

 

Hello,

This is also my concern: a small compact firm where we are in contact

with the developers/owner, sells it's bussiness to a large public firm

who "also plans to extend the CAD software's capabilities by linking it

to their databases"

And they tell us nothing will change... I do hope so, but i really don't

believe that. But then again, the sale is a hard fact and no one can see

into the future. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Richard

James Morrison wrote:

Hi Everyone,

 

For those who didn't see this in the German forums, I'll repost the

link...

 

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/09/24/47028/premier-farnell-buys-design-software-firm-cadsoft.htm

 

 

I actually stumbled into Element14 last week and say that they had some

stuff on EAGLE and that they linked to Newark (Farnell company) with pages

listing that they were selling EAGLE.  I thought that was odd.

 

I'm not sure what this means for all of us.  Interesting days ahead...

 

James.

Today I posted this to the element14 forums:

As a professional user of Eagle, I hope that whatever happens, Eagle

continues to be maintained and supported at the professional level.

Eagle is by far the most cost effective CAD tool for small businesses

doing advanced multilayer PCBs, and I would like to see it stay that way!

- Jeff

James Morrison schrieb:

Grzegorz Zalot wrote on Fri, 25 September 2009 05:45

Hello Jan De Ceuster !:

.....

I may hope so. Over the past few years I've seen a lot of companies

being bought by other companies and the least you can say was that >

things change.

We'll see what happens between now and about 3 years...

 

Yes me too ... I have in last few years only bad experiences with

similar "fusions" :(.

 

But maybe Eagle will become a lot of new features, and I hope without

"Farnell" prices ...

 

Yes, those are some of my concerns.  EAGLE has a great value for the cost

of the license.  But other tools (Altium in particular) are constantly

bringing their prices down and increasing their value.  So that is

something we'll have to watch.

 

The upside, is that with extra resources perhaps we can see a larger

increase in the value side of things (long standing wish lists and some

higher order functionality like differential routing etc).  That would be a

good thing.

 

I do agree with the above posts though.  These types of mergers always

start by saying nothing will change.  That usually turns out to not be

true.  Maybe in this case it will, but history tells me that rarely

happens.

 

For one thing, Farnell is a public company and trades on the London Stock

Exchange

 

http://www.premierfarnell.com/premier_farnell/profile/

 

So we're going from a private company to a pubic company.  Being private

always allowed CadSoft to put quality above the bottom line.  Now the

owners are legally obligated to do whatever makes the shareholders money

and software quality is something that bean counters rarely add to the

equation.

 

So I have some concerns.  It could be great and I have to think that Klaus

and Rudi wouldn't sell out their company that they slaved over for the last

20 years.  But the reality is that it is now out of their hands, perhaps

with some constraints placed on the sale.

 

So we'll see where this goes.

 

Cheers,

 

James.

 

ACK

--

Gruß / regards

Joern

Jeff Keyzer wrote:

 

As a professional user of Eagle, I hope that whatever happens, Eagle

continues to be maintained and supported at the professional level.

Eagle is by far the most cost effective CAD tool for small businesses

doing advanced multilayer PCBs, and I would like to see it stay that way!

 

- Jeff

I echo everything Jeff said, and would like to add that I hope Eagle

continues to maintain the superb cross-platform capability it has today.

Eagle 3.5 Pro was the first professional application I bought for Linux 10

years ago, and have upgraded twice since. In those ten years I've migrated

my license across 3 different distributions (Redhat, Debian, and now

Gentoo) and never had a problem with compatibility. In all those years--and

dozens of multilayer boards--I only remember it crashing once. It just

works.

In a world seemingly full of clueless .NET programmers who wouldn't even

know how to compile their code if the 'Build Project' button disappeared

from their Visual Studio GUI, it's been soooo nice to work with software

designed by programmers who obviously knew how to do the job right across

all three major platforms. Kudos to the engineers! I wish you (and us

customers) success in the transition.

Bob

Joern Paschedag wrote:

James Morrison schrieb:

Grzegorz Zalot wrote on Fri, 25 September 2009 05:45

Hello Jan De Ceuster !:

.....

I may hope so. Over the past few years I've seen a lot of companies

being bought by other companies and the least you can say was that

things change.

We'll see what happens between now and about 3 years...

 

Yes me too ... I have in last few years only bad experiences with

similar "fusions" :(.

 

But maybe Eagle will become a lot of new features, and I hope without

"Farnell" prices ...

 

Yes, those are some of my concerns.  EAGLE has a great value for the cost

of the license.  But other tools (Altium in particular) are constantly

bringing their prices down and increasing their value.  So that is

something we'll have to watch.

 

The upside, is that with extra resources perhaps we can see a larger

increase in the value side of things (long standing wish lists and some

higher order functionality like differential routing etc).  That would

be a

good thing.

 

I do agree with the above posts though.  These types of mergers always

start by saying nothing will change.  That usually turns out to not be

true.  Maybe in this case it will, but history tells me that rarely

happens.

 

For one thing, Farnell is a public company and trades on the London Stock

Exchange

 

http://www.premierfarnell.com/premier_farnell/profile/

 

So we're going from a private company to a pubic company.  Being private

always allowed CadSoft to put quality above the bottom line.  Now the

owners are legally obligated to do whatever makes the shareholders money

and software quality is something that bean counters rarely add to the

equation.

 

So I have some concerns.  It could be great and I have to think that

Klaus

and Rudi wouldn't sell out their company that they slaved over for the

last

20 years.  But the reality is that it is now out of their hands, perhaps

with some constraints placed on the sale.

 

So we'll see where this goes.

 

Cheers,

 

James.

 

ACK

 

Well, some WILL able to stay with the version they have, as it does

everything they need (the old "if it ain't broken, don't fix it"

saying).  But we all look forward to additions and refinements too.  As

many are thinking, we'll see what happens...