Just curious: How come Altium is so popular in corporate environments?

I have noticed, in the companies which I am familiar with, that they are migrating their PCB EDA environments from -let’s say PCAD, to Altium.
What sort of advantages does Altium posses which is causing this migration?

I am consulting for a large company that has invested big money into PCB software and can not change because of momentum. They have the idea that $50,000 makes better software. Maybe there is some thing to that.

Many of the engineers now are working as consultants to save the company money. We can not all afford Altium and Auto CAD and MS office. A number of us moved over to KiCAD and FreeCAD because on 1/2 money we just can not put $10,000 into software. There is a good chance that we will work 40% of the year and maybe never get another job. I have used PCAD, Altium, EE design and Eagle ....... but in the work environment I find myself in, open source software is the choice. If I was doing a 4 FPGA design KiCAD 5 would not be the best choice but would work. KiDAC 6 is (mostly working) and will push hard against Altium.

My option, RonSimpson

According to the Altium website, a single site standard subscription requires a perpetual on-demand 1 year license of US$8795 plus a US$1995 license.

I do feel your pain.

At this point, I turn down jobs that "must be in Altium" and only pay $5000.

ronsimpson said:

At this point, I turn down jobs that "must be in Altium" and only pay $5000.

Click to expand...

Hi ron,
but how is Kicad going in terms of simulations? Can it visualise magnetic flux around tracks etc...?