Karl wrote:
......
I believe that strategic partnerships and open standards are the Graphisoft philosophy, as opposed to acquisition and integration (Autodesk). At least that's what I've seen so far.
Cheers,
Karl
.....Frankly speaking, that's a strategy that's doomed to failure. Especially when the strategic partnerships you have to rely on are with parties who have been, or are arguably soon to be bought out by your main competitor - Autodesk (see Ecotect, Navisworks and maybe even throw in Tekla,.... in the soon-to-be category), - and the 'open' standards are more or less, defined and set by the same said main competitor; thanks to their market dominance and your own poor development strategies and lack of vision ( see: .Dwg format, Revit North American dominance and ubiquity vs. GS North American piss-poor marketing, and of course, IFC format impotence and sterility).
Granted, Graphisoft, (and by extension Nemetschek) don't posses the same degree of raw purchasing and buy-out power, which Autodesk currently wields like an iron fist, but there have been a lot of avoidable mis-steps, lost opportunities, and just plain, dumb business decisions on their own part, in recent years, that would have, more than bridged the gap, had they taken a more innovative approach to ArchiCAD's development and marketing.
Needless to say, that that's a whole other thread discussion, but the point here being that, the primary error with this market strategy ( of relying on 'strategic partnerships' and even third party developers) is that, how long do you suppose it will be before the third-party software, that you have to rely on to fill in the gaps for your own software's shortcomings, but which might be owned by your rival ( or soon-to-be-owned), begin to exhibit deliberate 'strategic' compatibility issues with your own software? Especially when it's in said rival's best interest; and it is.
In other words, how long, or rather how many more versions do you think there are, before Ecotect, for example, becomes an Autodesk-exclusive software reading only Autodesk format models ; - bearing in mind that Ecotect used to have such a great, or at least decent, interoperability and compatibility with ArchiCAD prior to their buy-out . Or the fact that Graphisoft ( or Nemetschek) could easily have bought out Ecotect prior to the Autodesk sale ( like they did with Ductworks, which is now ArchiCAD's MEP modeler), short of developing those kinds of environmental analysis- suite of tools for ArchiCAD, rather than sitting on their thumbs ( or their 'strategic partnerships' if you will,) and waiting until Autodesk bought them out.
Ditto Navisworks.
One would ask why would Autodesk do such a thing (locking out non-Autodesk users from their propriety software like Ecotect and Navisworks) when the more pertinent question should be; what would be the interest or benefit for them in NOT doing so, and hence forcing undecided users to have to use Autodesk software anyway or to begin with?
Eventually, GS (and consequently their users) may find themselves having to rely on their main competitors (who owe them nothing) for features and tools that they refuse, are unwilling or unable to provide for their own customers - and which they risk having completely no access to depending on their rival's marketing decisions. Not a very good place to be.
That's why I think it's a terminally doomed strategy.