topic Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True? in Modeling

German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:53:30 GMT

Someone just came in the office to sell us some autodesk products. He told me that AC is going to be sold to this german company, and they will stop it's production in order to sell their own products to AC users.
Was this just some autodesk marketing plan to convince me to buy autocad or is it true?

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:19:42 GMT

It's true that German AEC company Nemetschek AG bought Graphisoft.
It's not true that it will stop producing AC.

Dirty marketing is common for Autodesk, unfortunately.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:12:29 GMT

It's sad that they feel the need to lie to their prospective customers.
Perhaps that is why many AutoCAD customers dislike (hate?) Autodesk.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Laura Yanoviak — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:26:17 GMT

Tomtomas wrote:
Dirty marketing is common for Autodesk, unfortunately.

True. How low will they go?

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:42:44 GMT

You should complain to Autodesk about this guy -- Autodesk wouldn't say such things, but a reseller might spout off a statement like that to drum up some sales. It's misleading and is a disservice to everyone when stupid fear tactics are used.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:11:17 GMT

metanoia wrote:
Autodesk wouldn't say such things...

Actually this is not inconsistent with official marketing I have seen from Autodesk in the past. While I am sure that the folks at Revit are very much above such antics, it is a long way from Waltham to San Rafael.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Scott Davis — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:25:57 GMT

Since this was a guy who came to the office to "sell something" that tells me he's part of the Reseller Network. This is a group of independent companies that have been authorized by Autodesk to sell Autodesk software in a given region. These resellers must be approved by Autodesk, but are not part of the company.

They compete for these territories, and those who have been authorized in a certain territory do not want to lose it, as its tough to get it in the first place.

Autodesk monitors their resellers, and will revoke a resellers ability to sell if they don't adhere to some standards. In this particular case, I think one should take Wes' advice and report the situation. If the statement was made as quoted below, then that needs to be addressed. Its not some "grand marketing scheme" by Autodesk to give this information to a reseller and tell them to use it in trying to make a sale. This is simply a reseller that has either taken it upon himself to make a potentially false statement to make a sale, or he is just misinformed himself.

When Revit was bought by Autodesk, there were a ton of rumors that it would be "killed off". I think the same thing is happening now with AC. Rumors are circulating, and some people and/or resellers are letting the rumors get the best of them.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:09:26 GMT

I remember when Autodesk was publishing on their own web sites about how ADT was going to be discontinued. Don't tell me this was not to try and scare them in to buying Revit, which by the way, they were giving away free to ADT subscribers back then. Are they still doing that?
Offering free help to "migrate" to Revit.

ADT users revolted. ADT is still here, and better than ever.
I wonder if it has a larger user base than Revit?

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Scott Davis — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:18:22 GMT

Revit was a "upgrade" promotion to ADT users at one time. In fact I think it still is. It was never given away "free" to ADT users, unless you mean the 30-day fully functioning trial, which is free to anyone.

Autodesk offers support for all their products, whether its autocad to ADT, or ADT to Revit.

Yes, ADT users revolted. ADT is a strong product, and has a large user base. And although the total "seats" is larger, many still use ADT as base AutoCAD, and the sales numbers for ADT have slowed significantly while Revit sales are stronger than ever: 12,000 seats last quarter alone. Even Autodesk has changed their marketing tune. ADT is "AutoCAD for Architects" and Revit is 3D Building Information Modeling. ADT is being promoted to do what it does best: automate 2D drafting/design for architects.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:25:39 GMT

samantic...If they could not get you to buy Revit even by telling you a lie (that ADT was going to be discontinued) they included a full liscence for Revit with the ADT subscription.

Is it stll like that? If you buy an ADT liscense today can you get a liscense for Revit with it?

Tell me something you can do with Revit you can not do with ADT?

ADT is/was very 3D capable before Revit even came along.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:52:47 GMT

Steve wrote:
I remember when Autodesk was publishing on their own web sites about how ADT was going to be discontinued

Autodesk has never said that. Working for a reseller during that time when ADT users were fearing the worst, that was never the party line. They now acknowledge that ADT doesn't succeed very often at BIM (though it can if you can just learn everything about that wretched piece of software), so the message has changed over the years.

Autodesk did and may still offer the so-called "Rev it up" promotions where ADT and Revit are sold together for the same price as ADT or Revit.

In ADT sections and elevations are dead; in Revit they are "live". All documents created by Revit are interconnected; there's no assembling myriad xrefs together to build a model.

Still, ADT has had its successes: Heathrow T5 is an ADT project that would be daunting to complete in Revit. You'd have to link files together in Revit just like you do in ADT (though far fewer in number), and it would require discipline and coordination, much like it must have required in ADT.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Steve Jepson — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:23:56 GMT

There you have it. And from the people who know. It was all a vicious roumor.

To help put an end to roumors, ADT 3.3 is dead now right?
All Autodesk 2000 based products were discontinued about a year ago right?

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Scott Davis — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 05:31:57 GMT

Steve wrote:
Tell me something you can do with Revit you can not do with ADT?

Change the size of a door in a schedule and it will update instantly anywhere else it occurs in the project. Plan, section, elevation, 3D, perspective...

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Steve Jepson — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:29:13 GMT

Is that still true for ADT 2007? I wouldn't know.

tthey can do a lot with the new zones and linking clasifications. Change a the fire rating on a wall and it will change the door too. Things like that.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 07:48:35 GMT

Scott wrote:
Steve wrote:
Tell me something you can do with Revit you can not do with ADT?

Change the size of a door in a schedule and it will update instantly anywhere else it occurs in the project. Plan, section, elevation, 3D, perspective...

And will mess your model if you forgot constrain somewhere somehow ...
I think that making changes to the 3d model via schedule is fundamentally wrong.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 16:51:11 GMT

Why is it wrong? It's powerful and convenient, and I wouldn't be caught without it. Don't knock it til you try it 😉

Revit users do complain about some things Revit does -- this is not one of them.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Scott Davis — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 17:34:47 GMT

metanoia wrote:
Why is it wrong? It's powerful and convenient, and I wouldn't be caught without it. Don't knock it til you try it 😉

Revit users do complain about some things Revit does -- this is not one of them.

and to further what Wes said....some companies are working on specification software for Revit, where you can change an item in the TEXT of your spec, and the model will update. Full Bi-directional associativity is hugely powerful.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

TomWaltz — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:23:13 GMT

Scott wrote:
metanoia wrote:
Why is it wrong? It's powerful and convenient, and I wouldn't be caught without it. Don't knock it til you try it 😉

Revit users do complain about some things Revit does -- this is not one of them.
and to further what Wes said....some companies are working on specification software for Revit, where you can change an item in the TEXT of your spec, and the model will update. Full Bi-directional associativity is hugely powerful.

That's a major point in the BIM industry: You should be able to edit something anywhere you see it. It's up to you to make sure if updates in a way that makes sense.

Archicad does give you control over what direction elements change in size, and it's immensely useful if you use it.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 11:04:11 GMT

TomWaltz wrote:
Scott wrote:
metanoia wrote:
Why is it wrong? It's powerful and convenient, and I wouldn't be caught without it. Don't knock it til you try it 😉

Revit users do complain about some things Revit does -- this is not one of them.

and to further what Wes said....some companies are working on specification software for Revit, where you can change an item in the TEXT of your spec, and the model will update. Full Bi-directional associativity is hugely powerful.

That's a major point in the BIM industry: You should be able to edit something anywhere you see it. It's up to you to make sure if updates in a way that makes sense.

And the most sensible way for the architect to make changes in 3D model is to edit 3D model itself, not the schedule. It's the easiest way to avoid modeling mistakes.

Please don't get me wrong - I think that Revit is great system. Ex-PTC guys know what they are doing for sure. But some of it's "features" (like one model-one file) are overrated.

Re: German Company buys AC to stop it's production?True?

Scott Davis — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:38:01 GMT

Tomtomas wrote:
And the most sensible way for the architect to make changes in 3D model is to edit 3D model itself, not the schedule. It's the easiest way to avoid modeling mistakes.

Sure...but sometimes we make mistakes graphically in a 3D model. Quick, tell me which door in this 3D model needs a correction? Then look at the difference in a tabular format....it stands out like a sore thumb! Being able to make these changes in the schedule to drive the model are valuable. Imagine this was a project with 600 doors? Go find the wrong one in that project model to fix it....ugh!