topic Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question?? in Modeling

ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:06:08 GMT

I've tried doing a little browsing research to see if there were any stats regarding say ArchiCAD / AutoCAD / Microstation comparitive market share for Architecture application in the US / worldwide / europe / pacific basin / etc >>> no can findy.

Just a curiosity bug in my bonnet > is this info available from GS or other?

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Chazz — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:25:18 GMT

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=16330&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=craigslist&&start=0

You will never find reliable absolute numbers but I'm not sure that it matters. More interesting to me (and immediately available and a very accurate metric) is want ads listings. In my area on this day revit beats ArchiCAD better than 2:1.

To most of us in the real world -- people who are looking for jobs, wondering what software tool tool to run their business on, etc. -- the percentage of use in their corner of the world is the only number that really matters.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:13:49 GMT

Chazz wrote:
You will never find reliable absolute numbers but I'm not sure that it matters. More interesting to me (and immediately available and a very accurate metric) is want ads listings. In my area on this day revit beats ArchiCAD better than 2:1.

From what I've seen Revit has been doing pretty well in the SF Bay Area lately. This may be due to Autodesk being based in San Rafael, Ideate's success as a dealer, or some combination of these and other factors. I don't think this is necessarily representative of the situation nationally, and I doubt that Revit is doing as well outside the US. There may also be more openings for Revit users since there are so few of them around.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Chazz — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:40:17 GMT

Matthew wrote:
From what I've seen Revit has been doing pretty well in the San Francisco Bay Area lately....

True. And I continue to get regular mailings and email from Ideate too. They are really aggressive.

The question then is: are we, here in the tech hub of the world, a statistical outlier or are we the vanguard -the lead swell in a massive wave?

I tend to think that as goes California, so goes the rest of the country (and to some extent the world) but this will probably get me branded a geocentrist. Still, a lot of things that start here end up everywhere (Craigslist being the most convenient example).

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Ignacio Azpiazu — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:13:21 GMT

With the gradual switch from 2D to 3D, Autodesk will retain its solid worldwide leadership in terms of license- and user-count --most (70%? 85%? 95%?) Autocad users will sooner or later become Revit users, at least before moving on to who knows what else many many years from now.

And Graphisoft's market will expand quite a bit, from being a niche product for the 0.1% or whatever of the architectural market using BIM/Virtual Building, it will grow into a niche product for the 30% or 50% of the architectural market using BIM/Virtual Building.

For whoever license-count or user-count in the foreseeable future is a big decision-making factor, I would tend to think that it is so obvious that things will go that way that real data is not really needed. And for whoever license-count or user-count is not a big decision making factor, I would tend to think that the thing just doesn't matter.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:19:39 GMT

Chazz wrote:
The question then is: are we, here in the tech hub of the world, a statistical outlier or are we the vanguard -the lead swell in a massive wave?

It's hard to know for sure (my crystal ball is in the shop for a tune up) but there are plenty of ways the rest of world does not follow California's lead.

I recently used Revit on a project and am working with one of my clients to coordinate with their consultants that use it. I still have a lot to learn about the finer points of productivity, but as far as I can see right now any proficient ArchiCAD user would be very unhappy to switch.

Right off the top, unless I am missing something, you would be giving up the magic wand, pet pallet, find & select, interface customization, and trace & reference, and I find the snaps and constraints less intuitive and much less versatile (though this may change as I get more accustomed to them). Similar functions can be accomplished with thoughtful organization of the families and relationship settings, ie the Revit Way, but I find this more limiting than the wide range of practices that can be accommodated in ArchiCAD.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Chazz — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:37:32 GMT

Ignacio wrote:
And Graphisoft's market will expand quite a bit, from being a niche product for the 0.1% or whatever of the architectural market using BIM/Virtual Building, it will grow into a niche product for the 30% or 50% of the architectural market using BIM/Virtual Building...

Not surprisingly, I don't see it that way. My contention has always been that there are powerful network and platform forces at work here. Groups tend to follow market leaders in a winner-take-all way. This becomes all the more true where there are limited open standards for file formats etc.

There are no real competitors to MS Office (at least no shrink-wrapped applications) because everyone wants to use what everyone else is using. We don't really seem to want a bunch of application-independent document formats, so instead we have, as a group, decided on Acrobat and PDF (however, there used to lots of players in this space).

Apple is able to compete a little in the OS space because they make something that is perceived by many to be vastly superior. For all of their effort and innovation they get maybe 8% of the market. But Graphisoft is no Apple. For a while now ArchiCAD has been the exact opposite: buggy and hard to use. What 30%-50% wants to migrate to that?

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Laura Yanoviak — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:04:13 GMT

Chazz wrote:
I tend to think that as goes California, so goes the rest of the country

I know many Californians that think the same way, and this is so absolutely wrong! Absurd!

We resently were contacted by a Revit reseller, asking us why we were still using AC when so many of their clients had switched from AC to Revit. I interpreted this as a flat-out lie. First of all, I know most of the AC firms here, and none of them have switched. And secondly: WHY?

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Erika Epstein — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:10:31 GMT

Chazz wrote:
For a while now ArchiCAD has been the exact opposite: buggy and hard to use. What 30%-50% wants to migrate to that?

For all its bugs it is still wonderful. And do you know whether or not Revit and others aren't also that buggy? More to the point, when comparing software you compare what they can do.

Its been only a few days since my "vitriolic" outburst. Andor contacted me immediately with requests for files. I assume he did this with others as well. Tests I did for them this morning went GREAT. The point is their EXTREMELY FAST response. Do other software companies respond anywhere near this level?

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:40:35 GMT

46cruisair wrote:
Just a curiosity bug in my bonnet > is this info available from GS or other?

About statistics, you can browse this link each quarter.
http://download.graphisoft.com/ftp/investor/en/2007_q1.pdf
Go to page 7, Geographical breakdown of revenues.

Not a direct answer to your question, but may be instructive.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Richard Morrison — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:56:50 GMT

Just for comparison, this report shows 3,000 seats shipped by GS in this last published quarter vs. over 70,000 seats shipped for Revit in FY2007 per Autodesk's annual report. I saw another financial report mentioning over 20,000 Revit seats shipped in the last quarter. I am seeing very little marketing from GS, which is frustrating. It appears that Revit is shipping something like 6-7 times the number of seats of AC. I'd love to see accurate statistics, and more aggressive marketing from GS.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Rob — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:57:12 GMT

Just for comparison, this report shows 3,000 seats shipped by GS in this last published quarter vs. over 70,000 seats shipped for Revit in FY2007 per Autodesk's annual report.

the shipping numbers are deceptive in 2 ways:
1. Revit is bundled with ACAD as a cheap option so people are getting it with great expectations and then shelve it happily as there is no better way than a proper 2D line for them.
2. people who are getting AC are more committed to BIM as for AC's nature - not being 'disguised' as a sort of ACAD extension (as it is being marketed to 2D community) and we all know that this attitude (BIM ready) is still fairly rare.

I think the really interesting number would be a ratio of actively used/total shipped

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 07:41:23 GMT

Erika wrote:
For all its bugs it is still wonderful. And do you know whether or not Revit and others aren't also that buggy? More to the point, when comparing software you compare what they can do.

The point is their EXTREMELY FAST response. Do other software companies respond anywhere near this level?

I wouldn't call Revit buggy so much as slightly incomplete -- which is to say that despite the software's maturity, we have hundreds of wishes (and hey, I manage them so I see them all). Not deal killers at all, just refinements we'd love to see. We have certainly encountered bugs, 99% of which are either fixed in a new build or at the very least in the next release. I can't think of an outstanding bug in Revit, but there may be one.

Autodesk responds pretty fast when you submit a bug report -- they've called me back in the past just to yak about possible fixes.

What's tough for me is this: Revit really is good software, and it's slightly tragic when people's hatred of Autodesk and their sales chain makes it impossible for them to see that the official software of Kermit the Frog is actually quite good. Along with the duplicity in Denver there is partiality at Pacifico -- I'm thinking of a "Revit to AC migration doc" which was largely balderdash.

I am frankly aiming to join the AC and Revit communities together. It is my hope that AC will gain marketshare, and features, and never lose ground to Autodesk. In the meantime I'm looking for Revit's feature set to improve for all disciplines, particularly mine 😉 No matter which sales team is throwing the baloney around, it's the truth that counts. I've appreciated those of you who have come over to the AUGI party and have even taken some hits (from a Revit founder, no less) in the interests of spreading real information and developing connections between the two communities.

As for the original question -- Autodesk ships all sorts of Revit seats that aren't being used. Most install the software; much less than a majority actually complete a project on it. Many try it out, and decide that because they can't figure it out, it doesn't work 😛 As for market share, I'm sure it varies from area to area. In Canada, Revit might own something like 10% of all architectural CAD seats in terms of CAD seats used for construction docs. ArchiCAD is likely less than half of that, and I would love to see that change.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Bricklyne Clarence — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:46:46 GMT

Chazz wrote:
Matthew wrote:
From what I've seen Revit has been doing pretty well in the San Francisco Bay Area lately....
True. And I continue to get regular mailings and email from Ideate too. They are really aggressive.

The question then is: are we, here in the tech hub of the world, a statistical outlier or are we the vanguard -the lead swell in a massive wave?

I tend to think that as goes California, so goes the rest of the country (and to some extent the world) but this will probably get me branded a geocentrist. .........

...........well, not so much a geocentrist than just woefully misinformed with an egregiously over-exaggerated and laughably misguided sense of self-importance.

Chazz wrote:
...Still, a lot of things that start here end up everywhere

.........do you mean like BIM,... oh I'm sorry, I mean, Virtual Building as it was originally called by some small outfit in Hungary in EUROPE, of all places, where it was spawned? Who would have ever thought that that would catch on?

I am curious; why for you use ArchiCAD? For all the bugs and crappiness about it that you constantly whine and grate about like a five year old, that is. More importantly, why do you spend so much time, energy and effort posting on forum of a software that seems to cause you no end of grief?

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Mats_Knutsson — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:46:52 GMT

46cruisair wrote:
I've tried doing a little browsing research to see if there were any stats regarding say ArchiCAD / AutoCAD / Microstation comparitive market share for Architecture application in the US / worldwide / europe / pacific basin / etc >>> no can findy.

Just a curiosity bug in my bonnet > is this info available from GS or other?

Sweden-Norway-Finland

3D:
AC dominating, followed by ADT-variants and a tiny group of Microstation. Revit on the move since they give it away to all subscription Adesk users.

2D:
In pure flatcad it is Acad-LT and ADT almost solely.

So in one or two years all acad customers on service contract will have Revit whether they want it or not. It's cheaper to upgrade an old acad to Acad+aca+revit than just acad...(good deal right!?) I guess most of them will just nod and bow. The people deciding which software to use are often cad-manager-acad-users building their existence at the company on being good at acad/ADT. So it's basically suicide for them to actually evaluate another software and find it better for their company. When the manager realizes that the tool they use is not the best choice for the company and asks the cad-manager if he has evaluated the alternatives before...and gets a no for answer...bye-bye...and the cad-manager starts working for the acad-reseller instead. It's a self nourishing monster...

The business as a whole is tapping it's toe into BIM and it's actually infant-BIM. Things will not look the same in three years, five years, ten years. This first step is basically to get companies up on the 3D road. It will for some be a bumpy and cumbersome road.
There is only ONE right choice right now i.m.o. and that is the open format choice. The business has suffered insanely with locking itself into 2D ADT infrastructure already and if they want to do he same again but harder ...curtain down.

All I.M.H.O.

/Mats

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Mats_Knutsson — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:55:41 GMT

Chazz wrote:
I tend to think that as goes California, so goes the rest of the country (and to some extent the world) but this will probably get me branded a geocentrist. Still, a lot of things that start here end up everywhere (Craigslist being the most convenient example).

Haha, you made me laugh this morning. Thx!

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Thomas Holm — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:22:48 GMT

Mats_Knutsson wrote:
So in one or two years all acad customers on service contract will have Revit whether they want it or not. It's cheaper to upgrade an old acad to Acad+aca+revit than just acad...(good deal right!?) I guess most of them will just nod and bow. The people deciding which software to use are often cad-manager-acad-users building their existence at the company on being good at acad/ADT. So it's basically suicide for them to actually evaluate another software and find it better for their company. When the manager realizes that the tool they use is not the best choice for the company and asks the cad-manager if he has evaluated the alternatives before...and gets a no for answer...bye-bye...and the cad-manager starts working for the acad-reseller instead. It's a self nourishing monster...

How gruesomely true. And since the service contract is forced on them by threat of losing the upgrade rebates. what choice do they have? If I've got a program "for free" vs. paying 4-5000 $ per license?
Monopolist practice is never nice, be it Autodesk or Microsoft. it's clear that Graphisoft has a steep road ahead. I't actually amazing that they gain market share nevertheless. Could it perhaps be that those who truly evaluate find it better?

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:16:18 GMT

Mats_Knutsson wrote:
So in one or two years all acad customers on service contract will have Revit whether they want it or not.

This is patently false. Moving from an Acad to an Acad+Revit license costs money. Then subcription costs more each year. They are not forcing upgrades, and many firms are still not upgrading. These sorts of statements should not be made because they spread disinformation and fear. What Autodesk has done is inflated their seat count by effectively reducing the cost of Revit from say $4000 a seat to say $1000 a seat; but they think they'll recover this through subscription fees. And at present subscription is worth it. Plus it appears to the world that thousands of seats of Revit have shipped but how many of them are actually in use!

There is absolutely no doubt, for better or worse, that an Acad-using firm is much more likely to investigate Revit rather than AC. But in area where AC already dominates, it is more likely that an Acad firm might consider AC because of access to an AC user base.

Where Autodesk stands to gain most is in North America, where BIM adoption is still low, and they have good marketshare with Acad/ADT.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Rick Thompson — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:17:07 GMT

Mats_Knutsson wrote:
Chazz wrote:
I tend to think that as goes California, so goes the rest of the country (and to some extent the world) but this will probably get me branded a geocentrist. Still, a lot of things that start here end up everywhere (Craigslist being the most convenient example).
Haha, you made me laugh this morning. Thx!

You CA folks, think you are so advanced.... Just goes to show you, here in Crabtree, NC, 100% of the users are AC users (and no, it's not on the map, but very near Clyde, NC). I know of no Revit users. (course, I don't get out much). So what that we don't have a Craigslist.. whoop-de-do. We are the rising Atlantis. Currents of the highest vibrational energy chilling our back bones. Very often, we don' even use a mouse or a keyboard... but that tends to not pay very well.

Re: ArchiCAD market share >> curiosity question??

Dwight — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:26:47 GMT

Users in Crabtree, NC = 1 ???