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 ?

[Ahmed_K]

What about STRONGER communication with other engfeneers softwares, plugins for tekla, Graitek, instead of just importing and Exporting IFC, revit gain too much when it focused on this, the number of engeneers is way bigger than architects, so, focusing on the engeneers market is a deal, and it looks like GRAPHISOFT is working on this way, the new column and beam, maybe new slab and wall in this version,
In the other hand, the MEP tool, it looks like a shy guy, hidden in the website's plugins page, it should be integrated in the main installer, and well presented in various tutorials, and why not, enlarging it's library, and capabilities, developping the electic module as well ,
ArchiCAD is a complete solution for Architects, Revit is not, a lot of basic functionnalities are missing, and i was surprised by this fact, the capability of working on the same file made him a good solution, Autodesk is focusing on collecting all the fields under one roof, and this strategy give customers unfinished products, 3ds max is being slower from version to anoither, no impovrmrnts in revit (slanted wall hhhhh)

[DGSketcher]

Keeping up with the sensible stuff the competition are doing is probably essential these days, but the one area where GS have / and continue to fail is the interface & usability. The underlying data and processing is generally solid and they deserve all the credit they get, but if they don't start listening to the needs of customers e.g. the wish list and developing simplified workflows they will loose traction as customers give up trying to understand the confusing mess of settings required to arrive at final documentation. No doubt AC24 will turn up in a while with a whole new set of workflow problems to be addressed rather than anything simplifying the way we work. There are things in AC that are just archaic like pen sets that add an unnecessary level of complexity to the whole drawing process. Wading through element setting dialogs that are pages long just to change the colour of the pen used to draw a window frame is not efficient or really required. GS excel at complexity, I know this won't be popular as I have mentioned it before, but why have several tools doing the same thing when one will do? Why do we need two different tools to form an opening and place an object within that opening? Beams & Columns are simple linear elements why weren't they combined at renewal? If these were single tools the software maintenance is simplified and users become more familiar with that tool. AC needs to develop focussed workflows that remove the irrelevant and help users complete tasks with the least amount of setting adjustments. AC may have originally been developed by Architects for Architects, but these days it feels driven by out of touch software engineers who just want to create an attention grabbing add-on and push all the practical user needs and essential fixes to the back of the development queue.

A successful business will always serve customer needs, if it doesn't it will loose to the one that does.

Graphisoft need to listen to their existing customers and then market share will grow through the best marketing tool out there - Personal recommendation.

[Ahmed_K]

Archicad 24 is around the corner, let's wait, may be something good is coming

[rob2218]

We can only hope.
Hopefully, wont be like the AC23 fiasco.
Hopefully, the 'speed' processor issue will have been resolved.
Hopefully, GS programmers will not release AC24 in shrink-wrap and it be full-o-bugs and quirks..........
Hopefully........

I love Archicad. I enjoy using it tremendously.
I know GS can't please everyone ALL the time...but with that said...please GS, just don't thrash components in the program that ARE working well?.......Please. I believe MOST users and loyal Archicad followers would be willing to wait more than the 12-18 new release period just to have a better and more refined working product......just sayin'.

[Ahmed_K]

Here is some good news, Param-O, a new visual gdl editor developped by "unknown"
A good step forward, and let's wait for the 24 announcement 

[Anonymous]

Interesting article on Graphic Speak.

Looks like GS's "Sherpa" Team is having a hard time carrying all Nemetschek portfolio to the "Everest's summit".

[Ahmed_K]

Braza wrote:
Interesting article on Graphic Speak.

Looks like GS's "Sherpa" Team is having a hard time carrying all Nemetschek portfolio to the "Everest's summit".

The fruits of theese efforts may appear soon,

[DGSketcher]

Interesting article, particularly the...

Prong 1. Treat customers better. Mr. Roberts is firm on giving customers what they want, and so not imposing his will on them.

I can't say I have seen much evidence of progress to address the wish list, not holding my breath for AC24 may be AC30?

[jl_lt]

having read some of the previous posts, including mine, some more optimistic than others, while also having experienced for the first time the interfase and processes for the use of linked modules and also trying (and failiing) to keep an updated template across multiple projects, i can safely say that if the multiple issues and missing functionalites for these and other tools are not addressed in the (very) near future, it will certainly affect the user base, specially users that begin to handle slightly bigger projects but are not so big as to have an in-house BIM department to handle all the issues. New tools mean nothing if high manteinance, which is the enemy of profitability, is still around. Here hoping everyone here is doing fine, and A24 brings some much needed good news.

[Anonymous]

Hi jl_lt,

Hope you and your beloved ones are ok too.

It seems to me that GS has made a strategic move on focusing on interoperability and reach the much talked "Bigger Market Share". And with this they clearly have reduced resources in the core development of AC. It is a risk move... and they are doing this only because they know how loyal AC users are.

And I agree with you: Processes are more important than tools. I would rather see improvements on, for example: the chaotic attribute management between multiple hotlinked files, than in a new or existent tool.