oreopoulos wrote:
Barry wrote:
We were told release will be in September at a recent user meeting.
Seems the 12 month release cycle is starting to blow out?
Barry.
If the cycle breaks then what happens about subscriptions? Someone pays and gets nothing?
I don't think the cycle is going to break (much as I would love for them to go back to an 18-20 month cycle); they will probably bend it as far as they can without actually breaking it (like they seem to be doing this year, by going for a 14 month turnaround to release AC13 from AC12), and will probably oscillate between 13-15 month cycles.
But fact of the matter is that they can't afford to go without the Subscription revenue stream - especially in this economy - and since more and more non-subscription users are opting not to upgrade with every supposedly "new" version that brings no new useful features justifying the upgrade fees. And then to compound that is the fact that they are probably not growing as many new users as they probably once were, partly due to Autodesk's Revit marketing behemoth (Graphisoft have virtually conceded the North American market to Revit and Microstation, which is both strange and disappointing), which implies that all the potential new users or 2D-AutoCAD converts who used to choose ArchiCAD because it had a more intuitive interface and workflow, and overall better features, are now heading to Revit, even though they may not like Autodesk, since "everyone else uses it".
In other words, Graphisoft have cornered themselves into this unfortunate situation due to a combination of bad long term development planning and a lamentable marketing strategy such that even if they wanted to break out of the 12 month cycle (which I believe is not only more expensive to maintain from an R&D standpoint, - especially if you're not an Autodesk with bottomless pockets - but also dilutes the product in the long run and erodes customer confidence and interest) they simply can't afford to now because of their Subscription program. They may yet switch from a full version release every year to a sort of half version release (AC13.5 to AC14 to AC14.5), for subscription customers like they once used to, and then lapse the full version releases back to an 18 month cycle, but again you have to question the viability of such a strategy if they were to pursue it given the number of hotfixes they already have to release with a 12 month cycle. It just doesn't seem like a good situation for neither the developers not the customers.
Is it any wonder then, that even their licensing stipulations for upgrading older versions and selling off one's license are now begining to look more and more like the greedy exploitative ones that Autodesk is famous for?
Speaking of AC13, it would seem from the mutterings, that this will likely be a "Teamwork" maintenance version. Not to dampen enthusiasm for it, but that would basically revert us back to the same situation as when AC12 was released and the biggest feature upgrade was the Curtian Wall tool, which 80% of users don't really need nor use, and the 20% who do only use it part of the time. Not counting the various limitations and drawbacks it suffers from ( like an inability to edit it in plan view, lack of application to vertical profiles) that make it largely impractical for design work. But at least AC12 had multi-core support, which was huge;- if you already had or were planning to get a multi-core computer. That alone made it worth the upgrade. So if AC13 brings one big upgrade along with another major under-the-hood overhaul, like 64-bit support (allowing the use of more than 4GB of RAM) then it might also justify an upgrade.
For comparison purposes Rhino 5 (which is still in Beta or Work-in-Progress stage) already has 64-bit support, along with other great features like support for a visual/graphical scripting interface editor (Grasshopper; - imagine if you will, a GDL editor/modeler in AC, that allows you to model and script parametric functions into AC geometry using a visual node-based graphical interface and not the usual line-based coding that we're forced to endure now and with all the power of a Generative Components or a Digital Project/Catia - one can only dream) that already works in version 4, and about 50-100 other new features and maintenance fixes - all while porting (and beta-testing) a .NET application to to run natively on the Mac OSX platform for the next version.
But then again McNeel Software don't follow a ridiculous 12 month cycle and they are a smaller firm than GS. It's interesting to me just how little interest, enthusiasm, or speculation there is on these boards regarding this new upcoming version compared to last year or to previous versions. I realize the economy might have something to do with it, but one almost wonders if GS themselves might be forced to "leak" something or another just to generate some interest and excitement, because right now it just seems of feels like everyone is tapped out, and no one really cares.
