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 ?

[rob2218]

AGREED.
Now...back to "Graphisoft capturing Market Shares".

[jl_lt]

Hi guys. Just passing by to say hello and hoping the best in this situation for all of us. Much strenght to our friends in the US, Europe and China where they have been hit the hardest.

Take care!

[Ahmed_K]

I contacted Graphisoft by mail to know how to open a training center ti teach archicad, they told me that they don't provide such a service, and this is a big lose...

[jl_lt]

@Mr. Bouhmidage

this is the kind of local grassroots efforts that can really help promote Archicad in a very organic way.
Hope you can make it happen and good luck with this endeavour!

[Emre Senoglu]

I do agree with the above mentioned comments in that ArchiCAD is missing out on potential customer base due to a perception issue. I've recently had a Revit user friend comment that they're "not going back to 2D" upon me mentioning ArchiCAD as an alternative to Revit. So that's something to perhaps work on.

In terms of functionality though, I am starting to feel the lack of one core issue. As far as I'm keeping note of the thread, this hasn't been mentioned and apologies if it already has. I'm under the impression that Revit does this quite well, and perhaps is the only real advantage it has over ArchiCAD: linking elements across multiple floors. Say I want to have a core running all the way through the building, I only have to draw it on a single floor and all the rest are connected. I should ideally also be able to parametrically adjust this link: for example to reduce 10cm from thickness on each floor. Same functionality could be used for interior layouts: allowing the user to have same placement for bathrooms, MEP systems and whatnot. This would allow for faster and more accurate workflow in bigger scale projects, thus allowing ArchiCAD to open up to bigger / commercial scale offices.

[qbic-ft]

I'm going to start with a few facts under my experience to go to my point of view regarding Archicad and the market share.
- Most principals don't use anymore any BIM, they don't draw plans. What they do is design (sketches and/or SketchUp) and they are businessmen.
- BIM Managers are advisors of the principals in terms of technology; They make everything more complicated of what it is to justify their position.

if you ask a BIM manager if the company is willing to move from revit to ArchiCAD he is going to say "NOOO" why? because he doesn't want to learn a new BIM from scratch and because the company already have all the system setup for Revit.
If you ask the same question to a principal the answer would be "Yes, maybe" with some more questions like:
- What are the benefits?
-How much money is going to cost me?
-how fast the process is going to take?

The Principals get together to find out and the BIM manager is going to do anything in his power to leave it as it is. He is the revit master and the company needs him.

Let's say we pass that because the principals are curious if they can make more money being more efficient ...how much money is going to cost me?

A firm prefers to pay for permanents licenses for most of the seats and some subscription ones for the new employees for specific projects until they know they will have more work to make those seats permanent. if you say...hey the cost per seat is $6K that are going to say "No"

Graphisoft should have an option "Rent to buy" where you are obligated to pay in advance the maintenance fee until you paying in full...if you don't pay, you cannot use the software and you may lose the maintenance fee.... Rent to buy has a commitment factor, you are already inside the boat and you have to try to make it work.

On top of that, I would offer free seminars and classes to the BIM managers to mitigate the fear of learning a new BIM platform; more aggressive training needs to be in place in my opinion.

[jl_lt]

@mr Qbic-ft

You mean, allow people paying a monthly fee, like if you were renting, but if you pay for long enough time you can actually own the lincense?

That could REALLY work, specially for small and starting offices where cashflow is king. It definitely is not the same paying for expensive software in one exhibition (or Even 12 monthly payments) than extending the payment period anywhere from 2 to 4 years.

My Guess is that many people would actually agree to end up paying more for the software if they can have affordable monthly fees and knowing that at the end they could end up owning a full license.

[qbic-ft]

jl_lt wrote:
@mr Qbic-ft

You mean, allow people paying a monthly fee, like if you were renting, but if you pay for long enough time you can actually own the lincense?

That could REALLY work, specially for small and starting offices where cashflow is king. It definitely is not the same paying for expensive software in one exhibition (or Even 12 monthly payments) than extending the payment period anywhere from 2 to 4 years.

My Guess is that many people would actually agree to end up paying more for the software if they can have affordable monthly fees and knowing that at the end they could end up owning a full license.

Let's say Archicad is 6K ...if you want to go with this plan for 2 years you have to pay in advance 2 maintenance years as downpayment+ 1st month(1600+250) and then 250/month and if the company has enough cash flow they could pay it off at any time.
You are not paying more...you are obligated to pay the maintenance fee during the rent to own period. I think a plan like that would help to spread ArchiCAD faster... the technical part is there, it's better than Revit, but the opportunity is not there; Firms think on Revit as a default BIM software id they were using Autocad before.

[jl_lt]

qbic-ft wrote:

jl_lt wrote:
@mr Qbic-ft

You mean, allow people paying a monthly fee, like if you were renting, but if you pay for long enough time you can actually own the lincense?

That could REALLY work, specially for small and starting offices where cashflow is king. It definitely is not the same paying for expensive software in one exhibition (or Even 12 monthly payments) than extending the payment period anywhere from 2 to 4 years.

My Guess is that many people would actually agree to end up paying more for the software if they can have affordable monthly fees and knowing that at the end they could end up owning a full license.

Let's say Archicad is 6K ...if you want to go with this plan for 2 years you have to pay in advance 2 maintenance years as downpayment+ 1st month(1600+250) and then 250/month and if the company has enough cash flow they could pay it off at any time.
You are not paying more...you are obligated to pay the maintenance fee during the rent to own period. I think a plan like that would help to spread ArchiCAD faster... the technical part is there, it's better than Revit, but the opportunity is not there; Firms think on Revit as a default BIM software id they were using Autocad before.

Ok, i understand. Its like a delayed payment scheme right? It seems fair to me to add the maintenance fee to the price if you are going to pay in 2 years. What about paying in 3 or 4 years?

Also, what do you think of the following:

So far, we have all been discussing how Graphisoft can increase its market share by selling a product, in this case, Archicad.
What if Graphisoft completely scraps this concept off (selling a product) and instead aims to become a “partner” of each and every architectural office during all its life cycle?

Consider this:

Archicad as we all know is not cheap by any means, and it is generally bought by anyone that can buy it. But what if we take into account that many potential architectural offices would like to buy it but the initial price is too high? Im talking about Latin America, Africa, Asian countries and maybe even Russia.

Hey, but you can always rent! Yeah, but i think they are not taking into account some cultural and economic situations: due to economic restrictions, my guess is that many people in these places would not consider it wise to throw money at something they know they wont own, because “who knows what would happen in the the future??? Whatever happens at least i own my archicad copy”. Maybe this is the case everywhere.

I agree with Mr. Qbic-ft; renting probably works better for aditional seats, not for the main seats, for as long as there is a guy that owns a license, there can be an office.

But i digress. The point here is that In order for people to commit to pay, they need to know they will own it, even if they end up paying more than the normal price, but distributed over a longer period.

So, back to the partnership concept during an architectural office life cycle: What if Graphisoft implements a very low entry price, with lower monthly payments, with a grace period every six months (that is, that you can stop paying for one or 2 months without penalty, due to the fluctuating economic conditions and erratic nature of architectural comissions), and if you make to the end, say 4 years of paying, you end up with a license?

This requires commitment, both of the architectural office AND Graphisoft. Commitment from the office because they will have to pay over a long period of time and probably with a premium, which i think is fair, while Graphisoft takes the risk that maybe some offices wont make to the end of this period and will stop paying. You can also pay in full at any time; Also, some will make it to the end, some will not, but even those that dont make it, will be very grateful and will probably recommend Graphisoft wherever they go (or they can always start all over again).

It would be needed to be discussed what amount for entry and monthly payments would be adecuate (probably people from different countries might have a different ideas about this), and also find out if current clients that have actually paid the full price would find any of this fair, but the point is that with something like this, Graphisoft becomes a partner of yours and is with you during your architectural journey from the very first day you start your office and becomes integral part of your sucess. If you succeed, they will too. Then You expand your market share.

[qbic-ft]

But i digress. The point here is that In order for people to commit to pay, they need to know they will own it, even if they end up paying more than the normal price, but distributed over a longer period.

I'm not talking about that commitment. I have seen many times when you are trying to use new software and you rent it out or you download the trial version to see if it works for you; At the end, the trial version expired and they opened it a couple of times, the same happens when you rent it...you are busy and trying is not going to be a priority is you have something similar already in place. (Revit)
When a firm made the jump probably is going to be a small team for a new project and they drop the licenses in phases. When the current projects are done the new ones will be in Archicad and they drop more licenses... so the process could take a couple of years depending on the load of work.

I worked for big firms as a designer, I introduced for" first-time" several applications because I already knew them and I needed them to complete my projects faster and efficiently... After seeing what I did they bought licenses and they are essential tools of their workflow today. I quoted "first-time" because they had trial versions of them but they never use them. I have my own licenses so I'm not going to spend days trying to do something with one tool when I could do it in a few hours or minutes with another one.