ArchiCAD 9 is shipping in mid-September!

[Bence Kovacs]

Dear Archi-Talkers,

We are happy to announce on ArchiCAD-Talk that ArchiCAD 9 will be released in September 2004. Shipment will start with the INT, US and GER versions followed by other localized language versions over the coming months. Based on the results of extensive beta testing we are confident that this version will be the most robust version of ArchiCAD ever. Please check www.graphisoft.com for the official press release on ArchiCAD 9! And... enjoy!

Bence Kovacs
Vice President

ArchiCAD Product Management
Graphisoft

[Anonymous]

stefan wrote:
Would I upgrade?

As some of you might know, I'm not into commercial work anymore, so I can't spend money on ArchiCAD anymore, but I recommend the upgrade for it's productivity alone. And receive Lightworks as the icing on the cake.

The question stefan is not that,
THe question is . After 2 years all we get is a 5% productivity because of 2-3 new features?
And if the price is at $1600, then do you think its worth that?
Of course all of you at US you may get that at 500$. Nice policy huh?
Twice the price outside US, and then get upset when piracy is rising?
But that has already been discussed and Graphisoft Has NEVER given one simple answer.

[__archiben]

something worth mentioning that i haven't seen elsewhere just yet: there has been some considerable work to many of the library parts with the focus on their documentational abilities. combine this with a seamless swap-out from the AC8.1 library to the AC9 library . . .

anyway...
oreopoulos - it may be very difficult to believe, but i really did have much the same reaction as you when i first downloaded and installed 9. but the usability improvements do add up to one big new feature. i'm sure it will be very difficult to sell from GS's perspective, and i really don't envy the person with that job!!

not every upgrade is going to make everybody happy. you can't please all of the people, etc... neither do you have to upgrade. archiCAD 8 (yes it was buggy, but that aside..) brought more than enough new features for several version number increases. we should also not forget that 8.1 brought us a host of new features (12 months ago, maybe less?) when we all thought it would just be a stability fix. OK - so you can cynically agrue that they we're probably meant for 8, but were really buggy but i guess what i'm trying to say is that in the last couple of years we have been given an awful lot of new toys to play with. in archiCAD 9 the improvements are less tangible to us, but no less valuable.

the stability issue, which i assume was picked up on from my earlier post, is of course not a 'new feature' or reason to upgrade. there is no argument here from anybody: it should work out of the box. period. i was simply stating that the quality of the first beta i used was enough to determine that it was no threat to change my live, real projects to it. sure there were a few crashes, gliches and quirks to be fixed, but that's what the beta period is for.

for all those going to the archiCAD university in nottingham, guess what? ( ), it sounds like there will be an opportunity to see it up close and in action. you decide . . .

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

And would you pay 1600$ to upgrade? (at least as Kevin said for the UK version) Does it worth so much?

WHen a product is not mature, a lot of features are to be added.
If it is (as a word proccesor) then there are not.

Do you think that in the product can stand competition to revit when for the next 2 years we will see no features, and revit 7 is just around the corner?

[Wokka]

Someone said that we don't have to upgrade.
Great.
In Australia the policy for upgrading to Version 8 from 6 was, pay for Version 7 first, then version 8. I assume the same will apply to get to 10 from 8....... Either way, they get your money

oreopoulos, I must agree, I've been a bit underwhelmed too.
No curved walls, slabs or roofs made from REAL curves
Sure I'll enjoy the productivity tools (selection looks great!) but honestly.............. 8.5 at best

[Karl Ottenstein]

Laci wrote:
We believe there are a lot of important new features in ArchiCAD 9. To be able to quantify all of the 'main' new features let me post the ArchiCAD 9 New Features spreadsheet here.
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=20158#20158

I can't believe this thread! I hate to add to it, but it sure gets your blood pumping!

My thoughts (mostly agreeing with some of my fellow beta testers):

This is a very stable release - I have done 4 or 5 projects with it over several months and DREAD working in 8.1 or earlier versions because of the increased productivity in 9.0. I'd guess I'm 15% faster, but perhaps Stefan's 20% is right.

[I should mention that all of the projects that I've done in 9.0 were begun in 8.1 and nothing was required on my part to convert - I just opened the files and started working. The 8.1 library parts worked fine, etc. There should be no transition fears, at least from my experience.]

I could not have recommended 8.0R1 because of stability issues, but I feel confident in recommending 9.0R1. The Design, Quality Assurance and Development Teams at GS did an excellent job. I will not be surprised if some of the bugs that were found in testing are not fixed in R1, but can say that some of the ones I found in the most recent beta were so inconsequential and cosmetic (wrong font in a dialog box, for example), that they have no effect on actual work.

I crashed a couple of times in an early beta. Only a couple. I did not lose any work.

The PDF list that Laszlo Neda posted is really not enough to 'understand' the value of this upgrade... more detail and screenshots would explain many of these things better. For example, one big time saver is the 'improved pet palettes', which have to be used to understand. (As someone else said in this thread - using AC 9 is the best way to appreciate it - which may make selling the upgrade challenging.)

A huge amount of development effort went into adding all of these features ... as well as resolving many bugs from prior releases. One can argue (for whatever reason), whether this should be 8.5 or 9.0 - but the bottom line IMHO is that this is a solid upgrade with a lot of new features that make it a must-have upgrade.

Karl

PS Something that I don't see in the PDF is a small, but useful feature that makes it easy to save non-rectangular windows and doors without having to edit the GDL script to create a wall hole. There are also some new features in GDL itself.

[Karl Ottenstein]

oreopoulos wrote:
You are a developer. If you make a product, unstable, buggy, with sloppy interaface, will you introduce a new version with all that fixed, naming it a new version and require users to pay an upgrade?

Well, that was the history of IBM software from the 1950's to the 1980's-- all of the old IBM mainframe OS, application software, etc. IBM called it "maintenance agreements". Microsoft follows in the footsteps...Win 95, 98, ME... Want your bugs in 95 fixed, buy 98 (with its bugs). Etc. Macromedia Dreamweaver ... until the MX version ... There is quite a bit of history of company's bootstrapping their budgets by turning out fecal [the word I want is censored] software.


I object to your comparison of this strategy with Graphisoft. GS provides FREE maintenance releases which not only fix bugs and stability issues, but introduce new features... all for the cost of the initial upgrade. Yes, GS hit a low point in quality with 8.0R1 ... heads rolled (it seems) and we see a strong focus on quality now.

8.1R2+ is stable, relatively free of bugs, and overall the interface is fine for most of us. Nobody has to upgrade to get a stable product. They can stay right where they are. 9.0 isn't making anyone pay for stability ... GS provided that with 8.1. 9.0 is offering much, much more.

Isnt every developers obligation to produce stable , buggless (as possible) products?

Yes, and I don't think GS would disagree that that is part of their goal.

Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl ..
Would you pay 1600$ for an upgrade to 9.0?
Does the ugrade cost in your opinion that much?
This is why i am furious. Its different to pay 400$ for an upgrade
and another thing 1600. If i pay the later i want many many many more than 9 has to offer.
(this is the price mentioned for UK upgrade)


Your opinion?

[Karl Ottenstein]

oreopoulos wrote:
Karl ..
Would you pay 1600$ for an upgrade to 9.0?
Does the ugrade cost in your opinion that much?
This is why i am furious. Its different to pay 400% for an upgrade
and another thing 1600. If i pay the later i want many many many more than 9 has to offer.
(this is the price mentioned for UK upgrade)


Your opinion?

Well, first of all, I think all Greeks (even Thessalonikians) should get free upgrades as a thank you for the outstanding job done with the Olympic Games in Athens. 😉

No, I wouldn't pay US$1,600 ... But, I would readily pay US$600...

Let's wait to hear some firm prices before getting too p'd off about this. If the UK price is indeed the approx US$1,600 (including VAT/etc) as mentioned elsewhere, then something is wrong and do start a new thread on country-specific pricing to let us all talk about that, post the prices given by resellers in our own countries, and give feedback to GS. But, let's get official prices on a real order form first, OK?

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

To clarify:

Following a genuine enuiry, I have been quoted £699+VAT for upgrade + one year telephone support, £599 per year for two year's and £499 per year for three years, with free upgrade if it occurs within the above time periods. UK VAT is £17.5%
Edit: At todays exchange rate, one-off upgrade calculates to be US$1,461, not $1600 (rough guess last week in all the excitement).

Given that the last chargeable upgrade was two years ago, the subscribtion rates did not seem like such a good deal to me.

This was my first and only price enquiry since the release of information, and I have since been given some other suppliers details, whom I will contact over the next few days. My initial shock/faint prompted my first post, and then I got to thinking about the inadeqacies of save-restricted evaluation versions, from a professional (non-academic) point of view, hence my subsequent posts (below).

I can't be bothered to get worked up about it all - I'll hang on and guage the popular consensus over the next 6 months or so.

Regards to all,

Kevin Brady, Architect Oxford UK

p.s. I can supply details of first quote supplier, but would rather do so in a private mail if anyone feels they need to check my facts for themselves.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Kevin wrote:
p.s. I can supply details of first quote supplier, but would rather do so in a private mail if anyone feels they need to check my facts for themselves.

Thanks, Kevin. I'll believe you. Did they (or another UK supplier - perhaps contacting GSUK directly?) by any chance offer a price quote for an upgrade but without telephone support? You have all of us here, after all, for free support. 😉

Karl