This summer's Olympic Games in Beijing have just finished. The games put China on the world stage in a new way. For the first time, China's gold medal tally outstripped every other country, including the United States. And the incredible history, growth and potential that characterize the country can also be seen in China's developing electronics design industry.

China already manufactures more than 80% of the world's consumer electronic products. There are six million new Internet connections every month in China. The number of graduates in China has gone up 1000% in 30 years. China's industry will not be held back in its quest to become the innovators and creators of designs, not just manufacturers of electronics. With perhaps 70,000 new electronics engineers entering the Chinese workforce every year, a shift in the world's center of gravity of competitive electronics design is likely in the near future.

As elsewhere in the world, this growth comes from changes in technology: the ever-increasing capacity and power of electronics devices, and their ever-decreasing cost. Programmable devices that let designers create innovation in new ways and provide new features and functionality in the field continue to enter the mainstream.

Chinese PCB designers are seeking new ways to bring their original designs to market, in China and abroad. They are less likely to be constrained by choosing old-generation design systems. They are looking for new ways to create a competitive advantage in China and abroad, and will look for new ways to embrace new technologies and devices, and new ways to do design.

Altium is well known in China. Or rather, we're perhaps better known by our earlier name and board layout software, Protel. We estimate that up to 300,000 designers and engineers use Altium's Protel solution in China. And we know that up to 80% of electronics engineering students are trained using Altium's solutions.

Last month, Altium announced a new "amnesty" program that takes advantage of the government's support for intellectual property. As a result, we hope that as many as 20% of the estimated 300,000 users of Altium solutions in China will migrate to Altium's next-generation electronics design solutions over the next four years. To support that migration, we're offering incentives in license pricing, comprehensive training, certification and support. It's an overall approach based on providing value to China's engineers and designers, not just inducements. Its success will come partly from the shift in recent years in the Chinese government's support for the protection of intellectual property, and indeed its stated intent to move from "Made in China" to "Designed in China."