Dear Graphisoft, are you our of your mind?

[jan jan]

So, this email just popped up into my inbox, as I am sure did to many other archicad users inboxes. It opens with:

"Hi Jan,
If your pipeline is overflowing, your projects always run on time, and profitability isn’t a concern—feel free to skip this."

Well as a matter of fact, they don't, so lets continue reading to see where it goes:

"The key isn’t working harder—it’s working smarter. That’s where BIM comes in."

Let me tell you something Graphisoft. I have been using your software since version 9, at that time the moron who wrote this email probably was concieved. And no I dont need you to tell me how to UsE OuR SoLuTiOnS. I need you to explain to me how is it possible that on M1 Ultra Mac Studio with 126 GB of ram Archicad spins wheel of colors everytime I try open new window, with cuts and views taking minutes, often even tens of minutes before the thing opens, why there is noticible freeze everytime I send changes to your Saaasy slow cloud, why Archicad is more unstable with every major relaese and why the intuituve ease of use we once praised the software for is eroding to autodeskque levels and why the program is absolutely incapable of taking advantage of the hardware at hand. Once you finish with that, please do enligthen me why would I recomend your products (as I once was) to anyone when you are moving to a business model that, had I be making the pruchasing decisions at the company would have me recommend to switch to competition. 

[jl_lt]

"Hi Jan,
If your pipeline is overflowing, your projects always run on time, and profitability isn’t a concern—feel free to skip this."

how to insult your clients while at the same time saying your product is worthless.  

what an extremely poor choice of words.  

[Emre Senoglu]

maybe a little off topic but in terms of grammar: some screenshots from a recent reel on instagram. i can't imagine how this can go out..

[thesleepofreason]

Anyone thinking that AC is about working smart rather than hard has clearly not used the program in the last 20 year or so as it now is a constant struggle of keeping track of limitations and workarounds just to get through the everyday work of an architect. And "BIM comes in" Seriously? As in BIM comes in without proper types and generic information entities and then gets laughed at and has have to leave again?

[Botonis]

I don't want to sound insulting or ironic but you have been using Archicad for 19 years and this is your first post in the Community.

You don't use any official ID, you don't have a signature and your wording is really aggressive. Even your post's title is wrong. 

Why should I trust you or  consider your post trustworthy???

Is there any certain reason why not to consider your post as an Autodesk's troll????

[jan jan]

I don't really think Autodesk trolls use Macs, and doubt they run Archicad on them. This account is based on company-tied Graphisoft ID. We are a paying consumer, having 30+ seats I belive and a BIMcloud SaaS subscribtion as well. (Note: I am venting my frustration as a personal feud, do not represent the companys view - we are a very vocal Archicad supporter otherwise) We run Archicad on what I belive are some of the best computers Apple has to offer and yet the software struggles with even the simplest tasks, like opening a window. In fact the performace is very comparable to what you get on base level M1 MacbookPro, and this levaes me to belive that Graphisoft isnt really cappable of extracting enough from the chips. We do biggerish projects, but nothing super big. We also have a dedicated experts on team, who police the best practices and any objects from outside Archicads own library are baned.

[furtonb]

Even if OP would be an “Autodesk troll” the concerns brought up are valid - unfortunately.

Just look at the reports on yesterday’s outage - I’m astonished how fast GS is speedrunning antagonising users, the flip really switched: it feels that they believe that BIM is the end goal and we work to build models not buildings.

Software ecosystems this unpredictable are going to have a fun time in the rapidly changing digital landscape.:)

By the way, with the switch to a complete SaaS they are on the same level as Autodesk if not worse, I couldn’t really care less - I pay too much to have concerns like this, if this is a “service” then it is being underdelivered for long.

My primary reason of running AC is being on Macs partially - the Revit workflows would be much superior in many cases (MEP, Rhino.Inside, environmental/energy add-ins…). It’s not ease of use anymore.

All that comes to my mind with the recent releases is the ever-growing headaches of moving features in and out, workarounds for workarounds, slower and slower models that we tend to build 50% in Rhino anyway, lack of instancing and types, the list just goes on and on and on and on…

The e-mail is hilarious though, I really hope CADgpt is only used for marketing, not for current/future development…

[rakurs]

I was appalled when I saw the incriminating email. It is extremely tone-deaf and unprofessional. I am a user that invested some serious money (for a one-man office architect) and time to working with the software, and this email targeted me, too, for some reason. This sort of campaign MIGHT be appropriate if they were trying to sell their software to someone who's exclusively working with 2D tools or even strictly on paper. But even then it comes off incredibly smug.

Even if my experience with Archicad is good overall but with daily nuisances, this is yet another reason to watch the landscape carefully and see if a proper challenger emerges with a viable solution.

[torben_wadlinger]

Brother, I don't know what's made me more upset: the embarrassment in the first sentence of the email or the thinking that a 30+ year user doesn’t know how to work with archicad properly.

don’t get me wrong. Everyone can learn something new, even after 30 years. But this you-hold-it-wrong-attitude is mind blowing.

but hey, the funny part is your boss pays GS to insult you. What a time to be alive!

[jan jan]

That is one hell of an silverlining. Made my morning Torben!