What do you think should be done to get Archicad a bigger market share ?

[Anonymous]

I personally find ARCHICAD way more powerful, easy to use, faster and all in all innovative than other solutions like Revit. However since Revit is backed up by Autodesk and long years of Autocad dominance, ARCHICAD isn’t leading in terms of market share, what do you think GRAPHISOFT should do better? Do you think it’s enough for them to just push for a better product ? Or is there something else you would do ?

[Bricklyne Clarence]

As someone who has worked with and in a couple of firms in the past who used Revit, I'm somewhat familiar with some of the frustrations at various levels aside from the very top (who didn't actually use the software), and the mid-level managment (BIM managers and IT supervisors who were responsible for the firm using it, but never really used it extensively themselves)

It boils down to this.
Revit is a very poor product (for what it's meant to do, or whom it's meant to serve), bouyed by a very good (or at least very aggressive) marketing strategy.

On a technical level, a lot of things with how it works don't make sense and it doesn't seem to be programmed or developed with the architect or designer in mind. Rather, with the person who will produce his construction drawings and documents.
On a fiscal level, it requires A LOT ( in terms of powerful computers, lots of technical support,...etc) just o make it overcome it's glaring shortcomings.
On a more administrative level, Autodesk is a very frustrating company to deal with. And I don't need to tell that to many here. Inaccessible, boorish, red tape bouillabaisse, bureaucratic nightmare....you name it, they got it.

Unfortunately, while I still believe Graphisoft continue to have the (vastly) superior product (for all the complaining I tend to do about them)......for the time being......., I constantly fear that the lag in their market reach is starting to catch up with their innovations advantage as they're forced to cut corners and make......dare I say it....often baffling Autodesk-like decisions in their approach to developing ArchiCAD going forward.

[Karl Griffith]

Coming from 34 years of running my own firm, and never using Autodesk products, and having merged last year with a much bigger firm that only uses Autodesk products, I have to say that reasons 1 - 10 for American firms to use revit is that "evryone uses Revit". So everyone uses Revit because everyone uses Revit. The result of guerilla (though I can easily go along with t he term Gorilla!) marketing strategy.

So the first requirement to break this line of thinking would be the ability to use ArchiCAD to directly edit Revit files. I don't know that this is even a possible future development, but my sense is that without that level of ease of interoperability, firms like mine will never consider anything else. Revit/ArchiCAD interoperability is certainly doable - I've done it. And it's not all that difficult, but it is one more thing to do.

Beyond that, the fact that ArchiCAD doesn't have mechanical, electrical or structure design applications is another significant factor in the choice of Revit. The firm I am now a part of is multi-disciplinary architecture and engineering. Revit allows them to do everything in one model.

If these barriers could be overcome, then there are the issues of training, etc, as outlined elsewhere in the discussion.

Firms don't choose Revit because it is best, or even better. The thought process never even gets that far...

[rob2218]

Yes, "Guerilla" yes...thanks for the grammar lesson.
I flunked out of English 101 in college as you can see.

But, none the less, that is what GS has to do to resolve this "marketing" dilemma. FLOOD THY MARKET....period. GS can't play "the nice guy" and believe that the US will like them because they are nice guys or their product is superior...which it is.

Think Billie Ellish "Bad Guy" song

[rob2218]

Very well put.
thank you.
What I was trying to write but I flunked English 101 in college.

Karl wrote:
Coming from 34 years of running my own firm, and never using Autodesk products, and having merged last year with a much bigger firm that only uses Autodesk products, I have to say that reasons 1 - 10 for American firms to use revit is that "evryone uses Revit". So everyone uses Revit because everyone uses Revit. The result of guerilla (though I can easily go along with t he term Gorilla!) marketing strategy.

So the first requirement to break this line of thinking would be the ability to use ArchiCAD to directly edit Revit files. I don't know that this is even a possible future development, but my sense is that without that level of ease of interoperability, firms like mine will never consider anything else. Revit/ArchiCAD interoperability is certainly doable - I've done it. And it's not all that difficult, but it is one more thing to do.

Beyond that, the fact that ArchiCAD doesn't have mechanical, electrical or structure design applications is another significant factor in the choice of Revit. The firm I am now a part of is multi-disciplinary architecture and engineering. Revit allows them to do everything in one model.

If these barriers could be overcome, then there are the issues of training, etc, as outlined elsewhere in the discussion.

Firms don't choose Revit because it is best, or even better. The thought process never even gets that far...

[Jp1138]

Karl wrote:
...

Beyond that, the fact that ArchiCAD doesn't have mechanical, electrical or structure design applications is another significant factor in the choice of Revit. The firm I am now a part of is multi-disciplinary architecture and engineering. Revit allows them to do everything in one model.

...

The MEP plugin should be part of Archicad, that at least is clear to me. I don´t know if it would help to gain a bigger share, but it wouldn´t hurt either.

[Anonymous]

Jp1138 wrote:
I don´t know if it would help to gain a bigger share, but it wouldn´t hurt either.

Actually It is hurting AC development, as it is a waste of GS technical resources.
MEP design is the kind of job trade that Architects should leave to engineers and a dedicated software that can freely communicate with AC.
AC should only have the trades that are related with Architecture and Urbanism, which mostly are:
- Some structural elements that coexist with Architecture (Columns, Beams, Retain Walls, etc);
- Landscape (Trees, Plants, Urban Equipment);
- Civil Work (Roads, Curbs, Street Signs, etc);
- Interior Design (Furniture, Decoration, etc).

My 2 cents.

[Jp1138]

Braza wrote:

Jp1138 wrote:
I don´t know if it would help to gain a bigger share, but it wouldn´t hurt either.

Actually It is hurting AC development, as it is a waste of GS technical resources.
MEP design is the kind of job trade that Architects should leave to engineers and a dedicated software that can freely communicate with AC.
AC should only have the trades that are related with Architecture and Urbanism, which mostly are:
- Some structural elements that coexist with Architecture (Columns, Beams, Retain Walls, etc);
- Landscape (Trees, Plants, Urban Equipment);
- Civil Work (Roads, Curbs, Street Signs, etc);
- Interior Design (Furniture, Decoration, etc).

My 2 cents.

I´m sorry, but for example here in Spain architects usually also make all MEP instalations, specially in small to medium projects.

The MEP capabilities can be important to represent all instalations in a cohesive project. Right now it cannot be done, at least easily. Ideally you should be able to import IFCs from MEP design software to Archicad objects that allow you to document everything. I´m not asking to make calculations inside Archicad, just to be clear.

You could also argue that civil works could be better developed with other specific software.

[DGSketcher]

I don't subscribe to the MEP add on as I never thought there was enough in it to justify the fee. I would be happy if they merged it with the basic licence, certainly for those of us doing smaller projects where domestic scale drainage & distribution of services can be undertaken it would be helpful.

If GS are minded to develop specialist arms, they really should be independent discipline specific packages and not a development burden on Archicad. I think there are a lot more pressing productivity issues on the Wishlist that should take priority that would also boost Archicad as THE architectural package it is supposed to be. There may be a lot of seats doing major projects, but there are also a lot of us doing the basics that would have no interest in having complex integral structural or civil design. I could also see such integrated packages going the same way as the energy analysis e.g. it is there but doesn't have the user base to justify developing it despite energy use being something that urgently needs addressed.

[jl_lt]

I agree with Mr Dgsketcher on archicad's nature. It is even one of Archicad selling points, that is, it works as a coordinating platform from which You can integrate other disciplines and information from other software (Open bim?).

As has already been said by yours truly and others, Revit tries to do too much in this regard and i'm sure the Big offices that have inhouse engineering benefit from it, but smaller firms which i can safely assume is the vast majority, would gladly leave the mep and rebar modeling to someone else ( i think modeling the rebar, save for very specific type of projects, is just 3d modelling porn).

On the other hand, according to what jp1138 says about how in spain they also do the mep, i think at least in my country the profession has Lost a lot of credibility because we had let too many resposibilites (like mep design) in the hands of others (engineers and contractors) so too many people think we are here just "to make things look pretty" which is a shame, and it's not because we can't but it's because it's not that easy to find people that would actually pay for mep on small projects (and we sometimes end up doing it anyway). It's a vicious cycle but we must strive to get out of it.

So, to wrap it up, as Mr Dgsketcher says, there are more pressing issues for Archicad developement (a lot), but an easier, semiautomatic way to handle mep couldnt hurt, at least for small(ish) projects. Some ideas:

-the ability to import dwg lines and the software converts it to pipes or hvac ducts, then adjust in 3d
-automátic attachment to fixtures like wc and the likes to generate vertical connections and of course, easy handling of tube inclinations. Havent used the mep add on though, so maybe all this already can be done.

[jl_lt]

With respect to the Gorilla war (i agree Mr Rob, it is a much better term), i don't know if it would work for GS now. If they were going to do it, it was 12 years ago; if they go for it today, it would seem just desperate and probably social media wouldnt be kind with them (as in, completely eviscerate them). Autodesk would rejoice

Back in those days, as we all may remember, autodesk indoctrinated people at architectural Offices but also catered to architects in their embryonic state, that is students, with great results i must say.

On the other hand, to this day, college kids that come to work with us from time to time, none of them had even heard about archicad.

So while GS marketing strategy seems to follow a more organic (and cheaper) approach, I think there is simply no justification nor excuse for this to keep happening in this connected era.

In an time where most kids want everything easy and pretty, GS would be wise to cater to this newer generations as Archicad is definitely prettier, easier, sexier and better (for many things, not everything) than Revit.

So the question is: how do You do that?
How do You cater to those kids and let them know the benefits of Archicad?? when those same kids also want to be exploring and working with parametric/generative design in college before they receive a painful dose of reality once they graduate. And it has already been discussed that Archicad, as of now, is not the software of choice for that kind of architecture.

My first guess is GS needs to find beacons of great design (firms) that also want to promote their software vía tutorials or something like that, but that would cost a lot of money for everyone involved