What do you get if you cross Falcon with EDA 360?

Well, last week I think I saw it in the form of an all-in-one application that takes a design concept and implements it in a system containing an FPGA, includes everything to take you from concept to manufacturing, including IP, software, printed circuit board etc.  But wait I hear you say – Falcon was a disaster that almost brought Mentor down. Well, this is no disaster even though it does resemble it a lot, such as a unified database, single application and a major new development for the company. This is in late stages of beta testing and their customers appear to be going wild about it. So who am I talking about? Well it is Altium – that small company based in Australia that wants to change the way that people view EDA, that wants to make advanced tools available to everyone, and thinks they can do it with a $5000 price tag! No, that is not an entry price – they have no extra charges for this or that, it is $5k for the entire tool suite. No, it is not second rate technology; they are stealing customers away from the big guys left right and center! No, it is not for a week; that is the cost of a perpetual license.