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2024-09-30 02:54 PM - last edited on 2024-09-30 09:49 PM by Karl Ottenstein
Dear Community Members,
Following my recent Graphisoft Insights post on the Subscription transition update, we know how important this topic is for you as our clients and anticipate your comments and questions. To streamline communication, we’ve created this thread to gather everything in one place. We’ll also use it to identify topics that may need further clarification, which we’ll address on our FAQ page.
Please note that while we cannot respond to individual questions in the forum, your local representative is available for personalized support.
Best regards,
Richard
Link to Insights article: https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Graphisoft-Insights/Important-update-Next-phase-of-subscription-...
Monday - last edited Monday
I think the near universal consensus amongst users I am in touch with is not to be bullied away from our perpetual licences, given that within 3 years of converting, costs will triple, and any work done on a more recent version will become permanently hostage to GS - without any way to access our own projects if we fail to keep paying.
GS have just destroyed most of their customer good will, and their own revenue pipeline for 2030 and beyond.
Tough luck for those that do swallow the subscription Kool-Aid if (when) GS declares bankruptcy within the next few years, as a result of flushing away all three of its main competitive advantages over Revit - price, perpetual licensing & architect-centric development. (in fairness, that last item has already been sacrificed in an attempt to become more Revit-like)
Seems to me there is a high risk that those who give up their perpetual licenses or who do any work on AC versions more recent than V30 will sooner rather than later lose ongoing access to their projects, as they will be reliant on cloud subscription and hosting infrastructure that will no longer exist.
So yes, the incentives are all completely backwards.
yesterday
I have read all the comments on this topic over the last couple of months or so & as someone on 26 I decided to obtain an upgrade quote. Then I ruminated for a while over what to do.
Should I upgrade to 28 now to ensure I can keep a 29 or maybe even a 30 perpetual licence?
What will the upgrades entail that I will benefit from or even use? How difficult will they make it for me to open old files? The roadmap is unlikely to be an enforceable document.
The goalposts look like they are going to keep moving for a while yet & with the proposed 3 year upfront deal being talked about & how everyone progresses or regresses beyond that. The dust will take a while to settle to the Graphisoft new normal, obfuscation. To which they have been exemplary so far on this subject.
I started on 6.5 so I've seen some great upgrades & a fair few not so great.
I had a very poor 12 months with Archicad in around 2021 with thousands of continual crashes & no fix until hot fixes were released so I have seen the worst of it when it doesn't work. But I stuck with them.
When 27 came out I couldn't see any solid reason to upgrade other than design options but I have done without that for 20+ years & doesn't really impact the way I work or use Archicad as I am by hand for for all of my concept ideas.
The cost to upgrade now is a lot more than I was anticipating & a cost to which I will probably not recoup based on any potential increase in my productivity for the outlay over the next, say 12 months or so. So in the end the decision was made for me. I cannot justify the outlay & I will not upgrade but (hopefully) continue to use 26 until I stop working for clients which is only 2-5 years away.
I will now put up with its foibles, its occasional crashes, lack of formal support & the fact that my mac will stay on 14.7 OS Sonoma.
I've done simple & some incredibly complex projects in Archicad so it is a tool that is very useful but it is still just one tool.
I do understand many others are in a position where they are being stood over & forced into a position of eventually pay or be shut out of your own intellectual property. That hurts. Maybe in some jurisdictions that could be illegal. In AUS I don't think so (didn't finish my law degree) & anyway, it would be a long fight to find out.
Graphisoft have taken a hard line for on paper at least, their future bottom line. They had a lot of goodwill in the Archicad community. Goodwill has to be earned over a long period of time, which they did.
A lot of that goodwill has been eroded over the last few upgrades but due to that original goodwill, the Archicad community by and large grumbled but stayed.
Now that goodwill has been drained completely.