New Altium Subscription Plans: Fit, Flow and Flexibility

In this interview, Altium Chief of Staff and Head of Investor Relations, Kim Besharati discusses the new Multi-Level Subscription Plan that was rolled out earlier this month. By providing unprecedented flexibility, choice and a ground-breaking way for design engineers to collaborate with the entire supply chain, this new subscription plan is poised to fundamentally improve the way electronic products are realized around the world.

Judy Warner: Altium released a new multi-level subscription model that provides Altium Designer updates, Services, and Technical support as well as access to Altium 365 which leverages the power of cloud computing. As a member of Altium's key leadership team, what drove this initiative, and why is it significant?

Kim Besharati: The full roll-out of multi-level subscription plans is incredibly exciting. For the first time, design engineers can choose a subscription plan that matches their specific needs, budget, and workflow--while still giving them complete flexibility to choose both from a feature set and license-type standpoint.

Additionally, by delivering these subscription levels with Altium Designer updates, services, and technical support while running on the foundation of Altium 365, we will enable our customers to collaborate across the entire electronics supply chain and ecosystem in unprecedented ways. This will be a real game-changer for the design engineers and the electronics industry. Altium 365 effectively manages production risk and solves for "long-haul collaboration" on the Cloud while maintaining all the power of the CAD software design tool on the desktop.  

Warner: Will you give a brief overview of each level, please?

Besharati: Altium's multi-levels of subscription plans running on Altium 365 serve the different needs of our customers. These levels can be seamlessly moved through as a customer requires additional capability or adapts to the way that they design. Currently, there are two levels to choose from. Additional levels are forthcoming in the second quarter of 2021.

• Altium 365 Standard: is available to all of our customers who have an active subscription at no additional cost. This level provides for collaboration and the ability to work from anywhere and connect with anyone.  
• Altium 365 Pro: is available for an additional cost to the Standard subscription pricing and is focused on those customers who require higher levels of collaboration, predominantly for design data management.  
• Additional levels Coming Soon! (second quarter 2021) 

Warner: If you were an Altium customer, what would you say are the key benefits to our customers? 

Besharati: The key tenant of Altium is that of "customer trust." Trust is the greatest asset that any company can have and particularly companies who are on the Cloud. The brilliance of Altium's strategy of Achieving industry transformation through market dominance is that unlike other companies, such as Autodesk and Adobe, as examples, we do not have to force our customers to move to the Cloud. We can, and will, honor our customers' choice, whether they prefer to hold a perpetual license or have a term-based license with subscription levels to Altium 365.  

Due to the impact of COVID, we have seen a surge in Term-based license sales over the past six months. This trend probably reflects a desire to ease the cashflow preferences of some customers.   

Our key focus is to have our customers try and experience the power of Altium 365 and its collaboration capabilities, and from there - no-one will look back. 

Warner: If I am a design engineer that prefers to own a perpetual license, does this mean I won't be able to take advantage of the data collaboration available in Altium 365.

Besharati: No. Customers can hold a perpetual license to Altium Designer, and as long as they are on an active subscription, they will have access to Altium 365 Standard for no additional cost. If they require additional capability, then Altium 365 Pro is available for an additional US$1000 to their existing subscription.  

Warner:  The ability to collaborate in the Cloud in similar ways as Box, Google Drive, and Dropbox is a genuinely transformative idea and capability for designers and the electronics industry as a whole. How will design engineers be able to collaborate in new ways with team members and secondary stakeholders?

Besharati: Altium 365 is the world's first digital platform that connects electronic design to supply chain to manufacturing. This ability brings about digital model continuity and an incredible way to manage production risk. Engineers can retain all the power of Altium's CAD software design tools on the desktop while collaborating on the Cloud. This will break through the digitally disconnected island of electronic design as the Altium 365 platform connects to adjacent engineering ecosystems, such as MCAD, and brings the power of PLM, Simulation, and more. In time, Altium 365 has the ability to become the "Amazon of engineering" if it is fully embraced by the engineering community. We are extremely heartened by the strong early adoption of Altium 365 since its launch in May.

Warner: Thank you for sharing your thoughts and perspective, Kim. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Besharati: As Chief of Staff and Head of Investor Relations at Altium, I am often engaging with the investment market about the power and impact of Altium 365 as a pillar to our strategy to bring about industry transformation. It is a privilege for me to see the genuine excitement and passion that our leadership, our engineers, our sales, and our marketing teams have for Altium 365, and the way that our customers are embracing this new world opportunity is really something. This is just the beginning of an exciting new future for electronic design.