NY Times:"Revit Architecture, the industry standard"

[Chazz]

Maybe eveyone knew or suspected this aready but it's different when the grey lady says it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/business/11gehry.html?_r=1&ref=technology

This is a fascinating article but here is the money quote:

Architects routinely use modeling software, but the latest version of Digital Project would enable them to try extreme designs for skyscrapers. While acknowledging that the Gehry software is impressive, Carl Galioto of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a firm that has designed many skyscrapers, says that it is hard to learn and three or four times as expensive as a conventional modeling program. Revit Architecture, the industry standard from Autodesk, is listed at $5,495 on Autodesk’s Web site.

[Chazz]

OK so no one believes the Gray Lady (at least in Dubai and down under. Canada appears split, poetically so). What about google? or the 2 billion people who use it?

It's pretty clear: this raft is sinking.

[Dwight]

Yes. Even Chazz's avatar shows an Archicad user flung from an Orc airplane for refusing to kiss the ring.

[Rick Thompson]

That's not a very encouraging graft is it. At least Mac is rapidly gaining market share, and Revit is AWOL there. I can't imagine firms are going to be very eager to spend money for any software upgrades this year, or the next.

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
It's pretty clear: this raft is sinking.

Well you can always interprete it the other way: Considering Autodesk's market presence and full force behind Revit, I think Archicad holds up very well. The "industry standard" still hasn't overrun AC.
But I'd like to know. W T F is "bim"?

[vistasp]

Chazz wrote:
It's pretty clear: this raft is sinking.

Huh? That was just a graph for search trends!

Google Trends provides insights into broad search patterns. Please keep in mind that several approximations are used when computing these results.

ADesk has huge resources and will naturally leverage them as best they can to create a buzz for all their software. A typical issue of AEC Bytes (just an example) will have 10 articles on Revit & 20 on AutoCAD ver. <next year's number>. If we're lucky, it may contain one article on AC.

[Chazz]

vistasp wrote:
Huh? That was just a graph for search trends!

I'm not saying it's the truth with a capitol T but it is arguably the most readily available measure of which way the market is heading. Do you have a better metric?

And as to the point that Autodesk advertises and GS does not (so of course Revit would have more search activity reflected in Google Trends) I say, advertising makes a difference. My company is absolutely brand-obsessed and they take every opportunity to expose and promote the brand. They do this for a reason: because it works. It sells product.

Graphisoft assumes that no one in their right mind would invest in BIM without a thorough investigation of all the options, so they don't really need to promote ArchiCAD too aggressively (this may be true but it's a crappy sales/marketing mentality). But the most damning indictment of the company is becoming clear: once users DO horoughly investigate all the options they rightly conclude that Revit is better (or probably will be soon, given its trajectory).

I'm with Dwight: "Ignore them and they will go away"

[Dwight]

Without going into the story of how i married into a family of Quaker bootlegger shepherds, and found myself on the hills of Sibford Ferris wrangling sheep to discover that once the flock begins to head for the barn, the stragglers, who could easily outrun my two waddling legs with their muscular, bounding four to leap and gambol with g a y abandon all night, that they go in, too.

A trend is a trend and it speaks loudly that you'll be in a field all alone when the wolves come wishing you had teeth for more than cud.

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
I'm with Dwight: "Ignore them and they will go away"

Yep. The Hungarians are just like us Swedes. We're the unquestionably the best, and that's an obvious fact that everyone will see if they just look. So it's best to keep shut. Clam-type marketing works!

[Laszlo Nagy]

It is true that Revit is big in the US. But hey, here is graph from Germany, the biggest exporter of the world.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

laszlonagy wrote:
It is true that Revit is big in the US. But hey, here is graph from Germany, the biggest exporter of the world.

I realize you have to wave the flag for Graphisoft here, and I reeeeally hate to have to be the bearer of a cold splash of reality here, but.....

......are we seriously comparing the German AEC user base to the American Construction Industry and user base? I realize the N. American real estate and Construction Industry is in a serious mess right now but is it even realistic/pragmatic/or even accurate to make such a comparison at all? I mean we all realize that ArchiCAD has a larger presence than Revit in Europe, and this has always been the case. But the fact that the reverse situation exists in North America (yes, the whole continent; as America goes, so do Canada and Mexico), has not always been the case.

Besides which, I think the point in the initial graph had to do with trends in recent interest rather than actual numbers of users of interested Googlers. ArchiCAD has been trending downwards (interest-wise and in terms of licensure) in both the US and Canada, in seriously dramatic fashion, for the last 7-10 years, and I'm sorry but we can't place it all at the doorstep of the age old-excuse of "Autodesk's market strength and Financial prowess"
Especially when most former ArchiCAD users now on Revit (because of company-policy or otherwise) and with sufficient knowledge of both programs still insist that ArchiCAD still remains far easier and more intuitive for Architects and designers to use.

The explanation probably lies closer to the perception that GS seems to, ( or looks like it seems to) have given up and capitulated the North American market to Autodesk; - particularly over the last couple of years - to focus their resources on their European 'home' base. Meanwhile Autodesk seems content (for now anyway) to strategically circumnavigate them (GS) and their European dominance by focusing their own global advertising and sales efforts in nacent (and not so nacent) markets in Asia, Australia, South America and West and Southern Africa; where Revit usage and awareness is on a N.American-like upwards trend. Its only a matter of time before they begin to take aim at European markets; especially when they leverage AutoCAD's unquestioned 'Industry-standard' status even in Europe.

Whereas ArchiCAD used to be ubiquitous in North American schools and Universities a couple of years ago, you'll be hard pressed to find graduates nowadays who've even heard of the program. Instead they ask about Revit since that is what they've heard, all the large firms ( Not just here in North America) use and look for in new hires. So in many ways, that initial chart is not surprising at all. The German one is probably reflective of among other things; the territoriality of Nemetschek's current user base along with ArchiCAD's already established user history in Europe along with (In my strong Opinion) the lag and reticence on Autodesk's part to breach that market. But that's only a matter of time.

All this despite the fact that ArchiCAD would seem, (to any knowledgeable and well-informed user, anyway) to be the superior product.