Autodesk letter and archicad opportunities

[Ahmed_K]

Hi mates, you all here have seen the letter writen by architects to Autodesk, and so more are joining it,
This could be a great opportunity to GRAPHISOFT to catch bew users, and make the community bigger
More focus on agressive marketing,

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Moonlight wrote:

It's true what you say, but come on, with all the money those firms are putting on the table in terms of licences just for Revit (not counting other products), and Autodesk not giving them the attention they require ... it's like Autodesk it actively shooting itself on the knee.

Or Autodesk have became an ipso facto monopoly, and what we are seeing is only a price tag negotiation.

I mean, this wouldn't be unique to Autodesk.
The situation where a firm becomes so big and so dominant in their field in terms of their market presence and ubiquity, that they begin to take it for granted that they should actually put out a quality product and think they can get away with just putting out number change upgrades.
Have you taken a look at the queues lining up outside an Apple Store any time a "new" iPhone is released with just a new camera lens or a new way to plug your headphone (for an extra cost for the extra accessory you'll need to do so)?
I'm exaggerating obviously, but still.
Apple makes great products.
(They're also the world's most valuable company by market cap, and its not by accident or coincidence)

And on the flip side, maybe this letter is those firms acknowledging in some small way that they themselves are contributing to the problem by always diligently and consistently paying those large licensing fees for all these years and not demanding more for their money's worth.

And it could well be a price tag negotiation as you put it, but in all likelihood and the reality we live in Autodesk isn't going to be lowering those license fees any time soon and these firms probably know that as well, and so their best bet is to shoot for the alternative which is to push Autodesk to actually put more effort into putting out a better product worth the fees its costing them.

At least that's the way I see it.

[jl_lt]

Bricklyne wrote:


And on the flip side, maybe this letter is those firms acknowledging in some small way that they themselves are contributing to the problem by always diligently and consistently paying those large licensing fees for all these years and not demanding more for their money's worth.

Putting aside the huge costs of changing a platform, my first question still remains, why stick with Revit then? i would like to know what does Revit offer at this level of practice that Archicad or other software doesnt? or was is it trully what has been said ad nauseam of just a marketing aparatus and thousands of new revit users coming out of school that made it easier for them to go with that platform from the beginning and now they cant get out of it that easily?

It is clear that an office like Zaha (may she rest in peace) would find it difficult using Archicad for the type of projects they handle, but many of the others dont do the same type of architecture as Zaha.

[Anonymous]

Bricklyne wrote:
Hopefully we can respectfully disagree and go about our own separate ways instead of making this about myself or you, when my focus is trying to be on the program itself.
So I'm just going to draw a line under it at this point and we can both move on.

Yep. Lets move on.
Apologies for my "Larry David Moment".
Cheers,

[Nader Belal]

@jl_lt

Answering your question, it happened that this week I was checking for details of a public tender offered by the government, for a local authority, and in the documents, the authority have stated that they use a specific program for data integeration called FME by Safe Software.

If you check Safe Software site and see all the files type that it can integrate together in the fields of "CAD and/or BIM", you will find IFC files, and those of Autodesk property formats.

And although the tender documents have stated that the deliverables must be in "open formats" (a must have) and native formats, it became quiet clear that the technical teams of this authority are dependent on Revit, and at some point the authority will ask for Revit files sooner or later.

And by this example, I wanted to show that their is a type of indirect monopoly that is already imposed on the AEC sector, and may be those firms have adopted Revit because it was an Autodesk products, BIM, etc, but right now, getting away from Revit is simply risky business

[arg617]

Moonlight wrote:
And although the tender documents have stated that the deliverables must be in "open formats" (a must have) and native formats, it became quiet clear that the technical teams of this authority are dependent on Revit, and at some point the authority will ask for Revit files sooner or later.

And by this example, I wanted to show that their is a type of indirect monopoly that is already imposed on the AEC sector, and may be those firms have adopted Revit because it was an Autodesk products, BIM, etc, but right now, getting away from Revit is simply risky business

This right here is a big piece of why most firms choose Revit. Coupled with the fact that all the kids coming out of school are learning on Autodesk software, it makes it a no-brainer for larger firms (especially those working on public sector work) not to "risk it" by choosing anything different.

[jl_lt]

if this is the case, then this goes far beyond the current, somewhat heated, discussion about Graphisoft not listening its users for some features. Check out the projects of these firms... would you guys say most of these firms couldnt do the same projects using Archicad??

If the answer of my question above is positive, as i suspect, that is "yes, they could do those projects in Archicad", then i think the real problem is not stated correctly and these offices are aiming their anger at the wrong place... it should be more like "by whom and why am i obliged to use Revit in the first place?". I mean, yes, Autodsk is probably in one way or another behind all this, but its the government agencies that are allowing for it. Maybe Graphisoft and other companies and users could actually join this fight.

[Florian Lohberger]

Moonlight wrote:
@jl_lt

And although the tender documents have stated that the deliverables must be in "open formats" (a must have) and native formats, it became quiet clear that the technical teams of this authority are dependent on Revit, and at some point the authority will ask for Revit files sooner or later.

I assume that is the real reason why GS implemented ODA's BimRv in Archicad 24 to enable Archicad to export the native file format the markts/ clients request.
Was that not he same situation with dwg/dxf import/ export functionality?

[Laszlo Nagy]

arg617 wrote:
This right here is a big piece of why most firms choose Revit. Coupled with the fact that all the kids coming out of school are learning on Autodesk software, it makes it a no-brainer for larger firms (especially those working on public sector work) not to "risk it" by choosing anything different.

I don't know if you guys heard of this, but an EU-wide organization for the construction industry also expressed their concerns. This happed in February but the Open Letter to Autodesk has brought it forward. Here is some info about it, as reported by Martin Day of aecmagazine.com:

The European Construction Industry Federation and potentially the EU Commission are looking at how a small number of software firms dominate the construction market.
"This has distorted competition in the EU and providers are locking in their construction clients to unfavorable agreements."
1) Software can no longer be purchased - only accessible in the form of subscriptions
2) Geographical restrictions are becoming a problem
3) Contract conditions are changing continuously, with increasing costs
4) The software providers in question have little expertise in the construction industry. This means that solutions may not be the right ones.
5) We are also extremely concerned that such “locking in” enables the providers to increase the cost of their services.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/daymartyn_european-construction-industry-federation-ugcPost-669453078...
https://www.worldcadaccess.com/blog/2020/07/europeans-examine-bim-vendors-sales-practices.html

[Brett Brown]

I find it interesting that one of the main gripes that these Autodesk clients mention is the increasing costs of seats yearly and lack of I would say productivity improvements, and also them not listening to its client's wants in their software. Isn't that exactly what is happening at Graphisoft???

The big difference between Graphisoft and Autodesk is that Revit and Revit LT are available all over the world. At Graphisoft, Archicad Teamwork is available all over the world but Archicad Solo isn't. So any practice that only needs the Solo version outside those specific areas where it is sold, has to pay for the Teamwork version at a larger initial outlay and then the more expensive yearly SSA fees.
Of course, Graphisofts excuss in those non-Solo available areas is "we supply the Start Version", which is an insult, to say the least, compared to the Solo version.

This is yet another example where Graphisoft puts profits first, large AEC firms second (years of features only for them), and last, 1-5 seat practices who mostly have to pay the larger costs (having to fork out for Teamwork) for their years of unanswered wishes.

So in essence, Graphisoft is no better than Autodesk, contrary to what many keep harping on here.

[Nader Belal]

@LazloNagy

Look, I´m a die hard defender for ArchiCAD, but we as users must make some reality checks ...

1. Most of the BIM manuals for local authorities that I have seen in the EU, when they use graphical examples, it is as if they have extracted it directly from a Revit screenshots, that if we don't take into consideration that most of those authorities do only provide BIM objects and template files in Revit native formats.

2. Most of the people that I have dealt with in relation to BIM, take Revit as the template to make their comparisons of how they should provide BIM services and products, and that experience can't be made more clear than when we talk with clients and service provides for custom made library parts, even if it was destined to ArchiCAD users.

3. In Spain, most of the authorities will demand its deliverables to be in #IFC formats, and not that they are convinced of benefits of open source files standards or those of IFC, it's because the EU have made it mandatory, and it wouldn't be far fetched that those same authorities would ask for native project files in Revit since they may expect with a 90% chance that most BIM project are done in Revit and their BIM platform of choice is Revit even if it wasn't the best BIM plataform for their specific circumstance.

4. Lets take the previous tender that I have mentioned as an example, FME from Safe Software, yes it does use many CAD and BIM formats, but even if we step aside that ArchiCAD have no direct connection with FME, neither does Vectorworks or Allplan, and only Bentleys Microstation dgn files.
*If i'm not wrong Bentleys BIm program "AECOSim" have incorporated Revit families as native BIM objects

And all those example is the one I am providing is for EU cases only, but most other BIM packages are EU made, and frankly speaking, I think its time that many BIM Software venders should have a stronger voice within the EU policy making, instead of leaving it only to users that voice it alone here and there.